NASA's New Partnerships With Blue Origin And SpaceX To Boost Commercial Capabilities In Space: SpaceNews

NASA has announced partnerships with seven companies, including Blue Origin and SpaceX, to support the development of new commercial capabilities, such as crewed spacecraft and space stations, SpaceNews reports.

Collaborations for Commercial Space Capabilities-2: The partnerships are part of NASA’s Collaborations for Commercial Space Capabilities-2 (CCSC-2) initiative. Under the initiative, NASA will provide technical expertise, assessments, and data to assist the companies in developing new capabilities. However, no funding will be provided to the companies.

Blue Origin’s Crewed Spacecraft: Blue Origin will use the agreement to work on an integrated commercial space transportation capability for safe, affordable, and high-frequency U.S. access to orbit for crew and other missions. This suggests that Blue Origin is working on a crewed spacecraft.

SpaceX’s Low Earth Orbit Architecture: SpaceX received a CCSC-2 agreement to work on an integrated low Earth orbit architecture involving both its Dragon and Starship vehicles. The architecture includes Starship as a transportation and in-space low-Earth orbit destination element supported by Super Heavy, Dragon, and Starlink.

Other Companies and Projects: Other companies working on space stations also received CCSC-2 agreements. Sierra Space will work with NASA on its commercial low Earth orbit ecosystem that includes the Dream Chaser spacecraft and LIFE expandable modules. ThinkOrbital received an agreement to refine its plans for large in-space platforms for research, manufacturing, and crewed applications. Vast will work with NASA to support its plans for the Haven-1 module and crewed missions to it.

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