NASA Administrator shares four key reasons why his agency continues to fund Boeing after challenges with commercial crew program.
NASA Administrator Bill Nelson shared four key reasons his agency will continue to work with Boeing for crewed missions to the International Space Station (ISS) despite thruster problems on the latter’s spacecraft. These problems forced NASA to err on the side of caution and decide to bring the crew back on SpaceX’s Crew Dragon in February next year.
Administrator Nelson shared the reasons during yesterday’s media call, which announced NASA’s decision. According to him, the need to have two dissimilar spacecraft for sending astronauts and the structure of NASA’s contracts with Boeing are among the key reasons the pair will continue to work together in the future.NASA Continues To Fund Boeing For Dissimilar Redundancy, “Arm’s Length” Contract & Long History With Boeing Including Work On SLS, Says Administrator Nelson
During the call yesterday when asked why his agency continued to fund Boeing, Nelson started by sharing that NASA needs “two spacecraft. To, uh, have the redundancy in case one is not available to take crew to and from the International Space Station.” This redundancy, also called a dissimilar redundancy, aims to ensure round the clock access to the station for astronauts as failures or problems on one spacecraft do not require NASA to ground the other because of safety considerations.
