Development of the Commercial Crew Program
To implement the program, NASA awarded a series of competitive fixed-price contracts to private vendors starting in 2011.
Operational contracts to fly astronauts were awarded in September 2014 to SpaceX and Boeing, and NASA expected each company to complete development and achieve crew rating in 2017.
In the meantime, NASA continued to send astronauts to the ISS on Soyuz spacecraft seats purchased from Russia.
[20] The CCDev program was initiated to develop safe and reliable commercial ISS crew launch capabilities to replace the Soyuz flights.
Finally CCtCap contracts were awarded for actual demonstration of crewed transportation services, which included development, testing, and production of the required hardware followed by operational flights to the ISS.
[52][53] NASA issued the draft CCtCap contract's Request For Proposals (RFP) on July 19, 2013, with a response date of August 15, 2013.
[53] On September 16, 2014, NASA announced that Boeing and SpaceX had received contracts to provide crewed launch services to the ISS.
[62] In July 2018, a test anomaly was reported in which there was a hypergolic propellant leak due to several faulty abort system valves.
[63][64] In March 2019, Reuters reported these test flights had been delayed by at least three months,[65] and in April 2019 Boeing announced that the unpiloted orbital mission was scheduled for August 2019.
Subsequent analysis revealed a second critical software error that could cause the service module to collide with the capsule after separation during the de-orbiting sequence.
The problem required extensive analysis that was still ongoing in October 2021, and NASA and Boeing estimated that a new launch date would be scheduled in the first half of 2022.
[72] Days before a planned launch, Boeing announced in June 2023 that it would delay the Crewed Flight Test indefinitely due to issues with the parachute system and wiring harnesses.
[73] The mission entails flying a crew of two NASA astronauts to the International Space Station for a one-week test flight.
[8] The Starliner spacecraft docked to the International Space Station the next day after troubleshooting issues with the thrusters on the vehicle.
The report also states that NASA agreed to pay an additional $287.2 million above Boeing's fixed prices to mitigate a perceived 18-month gap in ISS flights anticipated in 2019 and to ensure the contractor continued as a second commercial crew provider, without offering similar opportunities to SpaceX.
[84] On November 18, 2019, Boeing's Jim Chilton replied that the inspector general's report failed to list Starliner’s positive features and objected to the per seat pricing as they believe the cost is lower than $90 million given its cargo capacity.
[85] The funding of all commercial crew contractors for each phase of the CCP program is as follows—CCtCap values are maxima and include six post-development operational flights for each vendor.
NASA will decide after September 2024 if Boeing has met its certification requirements after the problems experienced on its crew flight test.
