Boeing Starliner
The Boeing CCDev capsule is a spacecraft design proposed by Boeing in collaboration with Bigelow Aerospace. Its primary mission would be to transport crew to the International Space Station, or to private space stations such as the proposed Sundancer from Bigelow Aerospace.[1]
Outwardly it would look much like the Orion, a spacecraft being built for NASA by Lockheed Martin. While it would have relatively the same exterior dimensions as the Orion, it would only be used for transport to and from low Earth orbit, so that there would be no need for the deep space infrastructure present in the Orion configuration. As such, the Boeing capsule would be able to support larger crews of around 7 people as the result of greater habitable interior volume and the reduced weight of equipment needed to support an exclusively low-Earth-orbit configuration.
The Boeing capsule has no Orion heritage, but it is sometimes confused with the earlier and similar Orion-derived Orion Lite proposal that Bigelow was reportedly working on with technical assistance from Lockheed Martin.[2]
NASA has awarded Boeing $18 million for preliminary development of the spacecraft under its Commercial Crew Development (CCDev) program[3].
The Boeing capsule would be compatible with multiple launch vehicles.
See also
References
- ^ Boeing Submits Proposal for NASA Commercial Crew Transport System
- ^ Klamper, Amy (August 14, 2009). "Company pitches 'lite' spaceship to NASA". MSNBC.com. Retrieved September 7, 2009.
- ^ NASA Selects Boeing for American Recovery and Reinvestment Act Award to Study Crew Capsule-based Design