Hyperdrive
SpaceX Takes Next Step in Race With Boeing to Crewed Flights
- Crew Dragon, carrying a mannequin, docked with space station
- Companies move toward manned test flights in July and August
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The successful voyage of SpaceX’s unmanned Crew Dragon to the International Space Station this weekend put the U.S. one tantalizing step closer to the day when American rockets will again ferry the nation’s astronauts into space.
Sometime this summer, both Elon Musk’s Space Exploration Technologies Corp. and Boeing Co. are scheduled to launch crews toward the ISS, ending a long drought in which the U.S. has had to hitch rides in Russia’s Soyuz capsules. NASA awarded them contracts worth as much as a combined $6.8 billion in 2014 to fly U.S. astronauts to the ISS, splitting what’s known as the Commercial Crew program to avoid a monopoly.