2015: NASA's Commercial Crew Advances Toward Flight

NASA and its partners are on track to launch astronauts from Florida’s Space Coast to the International Space Station as soon as 2017, thanks to critical progress made in 2015. Through partnerships with NASA’s Commercial Crew Program, Boeing and SpaceX are developing a new generation of American rockets and spacecraft to open low-Earth orbit like never before. Commercial crew missions will increase the number of astronauts aboard the space station from six to seven, doubling the amount of crew time to conduct scientific research off the Earth, for the Earth, while advancing the journey to Mars. This year, both companies began to lock in their designs, paving the way for flight tests that will begin as early as 2016.