NASA to announce commercial crew development awards

NASA at 4 p.m. today will announce the winners of a second round of funding to help companies develop the American spacecraft that will fly astronauts after the shuttle is retired.

The agency last year split $50 million in federal stimulus funding among five companies in the first round of seed money for the program known as Commercial Crew Development, or "CCDev."
 
The second round is expected to exceed $200 million. NASA ultimately plans to choose one or two companies to provide crew taxi services to the International Space Station.
 
Today's announcement had been expected early this month but was held up until Congress and the White House recently reached an agreement on a budget for the remainder of the 2011 fiscal year, which runs through September.

NASA will host a teleconference to discuss the results at 4:30 p.m. today. Participants include:

-- Philip McAlister, acting director, Commercial Spaceflight Development, NASA Headquarters, Washington
-- Edward Mango, program manager, Commercial Crew Program, Kennedy Space Center, Fla.
-- Andrew Hunter, deputy chief financial officer, NASA Headquarters

Companies funded in the first round last year were The Boeing Co., Blue Origin, Paragon Space Development Corp., Siera Nevada Corp. Space Systems and United Launch Alliance.

IMAGE: Artist's rendering of Boeing's proposed CST-100 commercial crew capsule. Credit: Boeing.