NASA finalized an agreement with SpaceX to provide five more crew transportation services to and from the International Space Station (ISS) as part of NASA’s Commercial Crew Transportation Capability (CCtCap) contract.

The latest contract brings the total CCtCap contract value to USD 4.9 billion with SpaceX for its 14 missions which include the use of SpaceX’s Crew Dragon capsule to transport astronauts, the Falcon 9 rocket for launch, and all other return and recovery operations.

The contract is set at a firm fixed price, with indefinite-delivery/indefinite-quantity contract modifications for the flights and follows NASA’s notice of intent in June 2022 .

AnalystQuickTake: NASA awarded the CCtCap contracts to Boeing and SpaceX in 2014 as part of the agency’s Commercial Crew Program to transport US astronauts to the ISS with the aim of ending its reliance on Russia for crew transportation. Although the initial contract awarded Boeing USD 4.2 billion and just USD 2.6 billion to SpaceX, Boeing is yet to launch astronauts with its Starliner spacecraft, while SpaceX launched its first operational crewed flight (SpaceX Crew-1) in 2020. Boeing completed its un-crewed test flight in May 2022 and the next Starliner mission, which will be a crewed flight test (CFT), is slated for early 2023. The fixed price nature of NASA’s contracts has resulted in almost USD 700 million in costs for Boeing from delays and additional work.