The contract cements a long future for SpaceX and NASA as they work together to launch astronauts to and from the International Space Station. The newly contracted launches extend their partnership through 2030 and bring the total contract value to nearly $5 billion for 14 fully operational astronaut missions.
Keeping the ISS in operation through 2030 has been in question lately, as Russia — the United States’ primary partner on the ISS — has threatened to sever space station cooperation amid mounting geopolical tensions over the country’s invasion of Ukraine. NASA has said repeatedly, however, that it’s confident the space station will continue to operate as it always has. NASA cannot currently take over the space station on its own, as the Russian-controlled portion of the space station provides necessary propulsion to keep the ISS in orbit.
NASA made clear that it’s still confident in Boeing, “[h]owever, we will need additional missions from SpaceX to implement our strategy of having each commercial provider flying alternating missions once per year,” Phil McAllister, NASA’s director of commercial space, said in a June statement about its decision to extend SpaceX’s contract.
“Our goal has always been to have multiple providers for crewed transportation to the space station,” McAllister said. “SpaceX has been reliably flying two NASA crewed missions per year, and now we must backfill those flights to help safely meet the agency’s long-term needs.”
