page_title: Development of the Commercial Crew Program
section_title: Funding
hierarchical_section_title: Development of the Commercial Crew Program / Funding
caption_attribution_description: English: None.
context_page_description: Development of the Commercial Crew Program began in the second round of the Commercial Crew Development program, which was rescoped from a technology development program for human spaceflight to a competitive development program that would produce the spacecraft to be used in the Commercial Crew Program. Starting in 2011, NASA procured concepts from private vendors for crew vehicles to carry US and international astronauts to and from the International Space Station. Operational contracts to fly astronauts were awarded in September 2014 to SpaceX and Boeing.
  An uncrewed test flight was performed by each company in 2019. Space-X's Crew Dragon Demo-1 flight of Dragon 2 arrived at the International Space Station in March 2019 and returned via splashdown in the Atlantic Ocean. Due to a Mission Elapsed Time anomaly, the Boeing Orbital Flight Test of the CST-100 Starliner spacecraft failed to reach the station in December 2019, but completed some test objectives and performed a safe airbag landing. Due to this, Boeing and NASA have agreed to refly the OFT mission in the fall of 2020.
context_section_description: The first flight of the Commercial Crew Program was planned to occur in 2015, but insufficient funding caused delays. For the fiscal year (FY) 2011 budget, US$500 million was requested for the CCDev program, but Congress granted only $270 million. For the FY 2012 budget, $850 million was requested and $406 million approved. For the FY 2013 budget, 830 million was requested and $488 million approved. For the FY 2014 budget, $821 million was requested and $696 million approved. In FY 2015, $848 million was requested and $805 million, or 95%, was approved. On November 14, 2019, NASA's inspector general published an auditing report listing per-seat prices of $90 million for Starliner and $55 million for Dragon Crew. With these, Boeing's price is higher than what NASA has paid the Russian space corporation, Roscosmos, for Soyuz spacecraft seats to fly US and partner-nation astronauts to the space station. The report also states that NASA agreed to pay an additional $287.2 million above Boeing's fixed prices to mitigate a perceived 18-month gap in ISS flights anticipated in 2019 and to ensure the contractor continued as a second commercial crew provider, without offering similar opportunities to SpaceX. On November 18, 2019, Boeing's Jim Chilton replied that the inspector general's report failed to list Starliner’s positive features and objected to the per seat pricing as they believe the cost is lower than $90 million given its cargo capacity. Boeing's reasoning for the extra funding was due to a later start to its development than SpaceX with comparable deadlines. Boeing also stated it committed to the program. The funding of all commercial crew contractors for each phase of the CCP program is as follows—CCtCap values are maxima and include post-development operational flights.
caption: Requested vs appropriated funding by year up to 2015
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