spacetoday.net: NASA issues new call for commercial crew proposals

Posted: Wed, Feb 8, 2012, 7:15 AM ET (1215 GMT)
Boeing CST-100 illustration

NASA released Tuesday a call for a new round of funding to support the development of commercial crew transportation systems. Under the Commercial Crew Integrated Capability (CCiCap) Initiative, NASA plans to award multiple funded Space Act Agreements (SAAs) to companies to support the continued development of crew transportation systems that NASA can later use to ferry astronauts to and from the International Space Station. Proposals for CCiCap are due to NASA on March 23, with awards of $300-500 million each planned in time for work to start in August. CCiCap is the third round of such awards by NASA as part of its overall commercial crew program. NASA had previously planned to make awards using more transitional contracts in this round, but in December announced that it would use the more flexible SAAs because the program received less funding in 2012 as originally requested.