Washington: The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) on Tuesday picked Boeing and SpaceX to transport astronauts to the International Space Station (ISS) by 2017.
NASA Administrator Charles Bolden named the winners at a late-afternoon news conference at Kennedy Space Center in Florida. The news had been eagerly anticipated for weeks.
The NASA's commercial crew programme is aimed at ending the US dependence on Russia for crew access to the International Space Station and all of the spacecraft are American-built.
US astronauts have been riding Russian rockets ever since NASA's shuttles retired in 2011. The only vehicle available to ferry humans to the space station is Russia's Soyuz spacecraft. Currently, NASA pays Russia USD 70 million a seat to take US astronauts to the orbiting laboratory. The agency typically purchased six seats per year.
NASA has set a goal of 2017 for the first launch under the commercial crew program. Both companies will use crew capsules. Launches will originate from Cape Canaveral.
