The
CST-100 Starliner is a spacecraft design under construction by
Boeing in collaboration with
Bigelow Aerospace as their entry for
NASA's
Commercial Crew Development (CCDev) program. Its primary mission is to transport crew to the
International Space Station, and to private space stations such as the proposed
Bigelow Aerospace Commercial Space Station.
It is similar to the Orion, a spacecraft being built for NASA by Lockheed Martin. The capsule has a diameter of 4.56 meters (15.0 ft), which is slightly larger than the Apollo command module and smaller than the Orion capsule. The Starliner is to support larger crews of up to seven people. The CST-100 is designed to be able to remain on-orbit for up to seven months and for reusability for up to ten missions. It is to be compatible with multiple launch vehicles, including the Atlas V, Delta IV, and Falcon 9, as well as the planned Vulcan. The initial launch vehicle would be the Atlas V.
On September 16, 2014, NASA selected the CST-100, along with SpaceX's Dragon V2, for the Commercial Crew Transportation Capability (CCtCap) program, with an award of $4.2 billion. The spacecraft is expected to fly to the International Space Station with an astronaut aboard by December 2017.
Robert Laurel "Bob" Crippen (born September 11, 1937), (
Capt,
USN, Ret.), is a retired
American naval officer and
aviator,
test pilot,
aerospace engineer, and former
astronaut for the
United States Department of Defense and for
NASA.
An aviator with the U.S. Navy, Crippen was originally chosen to the U.S. Air Force's Manned Orbiting Laboratory program, a project involving a military space station, in 1966. When that project was canceled in 1969, Crippen was transferred to NASA. He was selected as pilot of the first Space Shuttle mission, STS-1, along with commander John Young, which he flew on April 12-14, 1981, on the orbiter Columbia.
Crippen would likewise become the first Shuttle pilot to be promoted to commander, leading the STS-7 mission on orbiter Challenger in June 1983. He would command two other missions (STS-41-C and STS-41-G) in 1984. He was training for another mission when the Challenger disaster occurred, and was re-assigned as Deputy Director of Kennedy Space Center in 1987.
Crippen would serve as the Director of Kennedy Space Center from January 1992 until January 1995, when he left NASA. He would hold executive positions at Lockheed Martin and Thiokol before retiring in 2001.
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