Friday, December 26, 2008

SpaceX Gets $3.1B NASA Contract

Hawthorne-based SpaceX, the commercial spaceflight startup headed by former PayPal founder Elon Musk, has scored a contract with NASA that is worth up to $3.1 billion, the firm said earlier this week. According to SpaceX, NASA selected its Falcon 9 launch vehicle and Dragon spacecraft for the International Space Station (ISS) Cargo Resupply Services (CRS) contract award. The contract covers delivery of cargo to the International Space Station, part of a COTS program to fill in deliveries to the ISS as NASA goes through retiring the Space Shuttle. SpaceX said the contract is initially worth $1.6 billion, with the ability of NASA to extend the contract up to $3.1 billion.

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