Boeing Plows Ahead on New Orbital Transport

Artist's conception of Boeing's commercial crew module. (Credit: Boeing)

Space.com has an update on Boeing’s planned CST-100 orbital transport, which would service both the International Space Station and Bigelow Aerospace’s private orbital facilities:

The new Boeing space capsule is a project using the company’s recent $18 million award from NASA to advance the concepts and technology necessary to build a commercial crew space transportation system. It is one of several efforts by different U.S. companies to come with new spaceships to fill the void left by NASA’s retiring shuttles.

At the heart of Boeing’s new spaceship design is the CST-100 capsule, which will look similar to the cone-shaped Apollo and Orion spacecraft.

Boeing plans to launch the CST-100 capsule from Florida, but has yet to determine which rocket will carry it into space.

The spacecraft is being designed for compatibility with a variety of rockets, in much the same way that commercial satellites are. This will give Boeing the flexibility to select an appropriate rocket later in the development process.

And while NASA has outlined a launch target for 2016, the new capsule could be rolled out sooner than expected, which could help fill the gap in future human spaceflight should NASA scrap its Constellation program.

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