NASA Commercial Crew Partner Boeing Meets Software Milestone

May 24, 2012

Trent J. Perrotto
Headquarters, Washington
202-358-0321
trent.j.perrotto@nasa.gov

Candrea Thomas
Kennedy Space Center, Fla.
321-867-2468
candrea.k.thomas@nasa.gov

Susan Wells
The Boeing Co.
321-264-8580
susan.h.wells@boeing.com

RELEASE: 12-170

NASA COMMERCIAL CREW PARTNER BOEING MEETS SOFTWARE MILESTONE

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. -- The Boeing Company has successfully completed
a new milestone in the development of software that will operate its
Crew Space Transportation (CST) spacecraft. The company is one of
NASA's partners developing commercial crew transportation
capabilities to ferry U.S. astronauts to and from low Earth orbit and
the International Space Station.

With the Preliminary Design Review (PDR) of its software on May 18,
the company now has completed more than 40 milestones under
partnerships supporting NASA's Commercial Crew Program (CCP).

"When it comes to designing a spacecraft safe enough to transport
humans, software is as important as the hardware," said Ed Mango, CCP
manager. "Boeing has made an excellent effort to take safety into
consideration while developing critical software components of its
spacecraft."

Boeing's CST-100 is designed to be a reusable, capsule-shaped
spacecraft, capable of transporting up to seven people or a
combination of people and cargo. It is compatible with a variety of
expendable launch vehicles. Boeing has selected United Launch
Alliance's Atlas V rocket for initial CST-100 test flights.

Software is essential to all operational aspects of the spacecraft,
including launch, orbital maneuvering, docking with and separating
from the space station, re-entry and landing. The testing is part of
a NASA-funded Space Act Agreement under the second round of the
agency's commercial crew development (CCDev2) activities, which could
eventually lead toward human spaceflight certification of the
CST-100.

The Boeing team is on schedule to complete its remaining CCDev2
milestones in the next few months, including an orbital
maneuvering/attitude control engine hot fire test that will provide
additional data on significant elements of the spacecraft design.

All of NASA's industry partners, including Boeing, continue to meet
their established milestones in developing commercial crew
transportation capabilities.

For more information about NASA's Commercial Crew Program, visit:

http://www.nasa.gov/commercialcrew


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