BEIJING, Aug. 29 (Xinhuanet) -- NASA on Tuesday
said it has chosen Boeing to design and build the upper stage of the Ares 1
rocket, which will launch astronauts to the International Space Station (ISS)
and eventually send humans back to the moon.
The 514.7 million U.S. dollar cost-plus-award
fee contract runs through 2016 and covers the manufacture of a ground test
article, three flight test units and six production flight units. The Ares I
upper stage will boost NASA's planned shuttle successor, the Orion Crew
Exploration Vehicle, into orbit.
In winning the first major piece of the new launch
system, the Boeing-led team beat out Alliant Techsystems, the Edina, Minn. firm
that nabbed an 1.8 billion dollar contract to work on the lower, or first
stage, of the Ares 1 rocket earlier this month.
Boeing's subcontractors include Summa Technology
Inc., Hamilton Sundstrand, Moog Inc., Northrop Grumman, Orion Propulsion, United
Launch Alliance, and United Space Alliance.
This is the fourth of the giant contracts handed out
by the space agency in its multibillion-dollar plan to return astronauts to the
moon by the end of the next decade. NASA has already promised up to 10.5 billion
dollars in work to aerospace companies. A fifth large contract, for shuttle
electronics, will be awarded in December.
Ares I is a two-stage rocket that will carry to low
Earth orbit the crew exploration vehicle Orion, which will succeed the space
shuttle as NASA's primary vehicle for human exploration in space.
NASA expects to conduct its first orbital flight test
of the Ares I rocket in 2013 and start using the vehicle to transport astronauts
to the International Space Station no later than March 2015. The finished rocket
is expected to lift 55,000 pounds (25,000 kilograms) to low Earth orbit.
(Agencies)
