Anna Forrester
Boeing has completed NASA’s ground segment critical design review of its CST-100 crew space transportation system as part of the Commercial Crew Transportation Capability contract for the agency’s Commercial Crew Program.
NASA said Dec. 10 that Boeing underwent a three-week review of its ground-based operation processes and system designs for the spacecraft, including planned assembly and processing facilities at the Kennedy Space Center.
“This is a really good sign that we’re marching at a good pace to reach our goal of certifying the system to fly to the space station,” said Kathy Lueders, CCP manager at NASA.
The review covered plans for a mission control center to house CST-100 engineering operations, processes for testing flight hardware and integrating the spacecraft with United Launch Alliance‘s Atlas V rocket, as well as crew training and monitoring programs, NASA said.
“When Boeing trains our astronauts, they will have to balance simplicity, and giving the crew everything they need to know to manually operate the spacecraft just in case something goes wrong,” said Dave Allega, a lead engineer in the program’s ground and mission operations office.
The agency said the Commercial Crew Program is moving forward with the selection of Boeing and SpaceX to finalize their designs and perform test flights to the International Space Station.
NASA added that the program also supports its Launch America initiative to eliminate reliance on Russia for spaceflight missions.
