Shireman, though, cautioned those test flights, as well as two scheduled by Boeing for 2018, may encounter additional delays. “They’ll fly when they’re ready, and while we want them to be ready as soon as possible, we also don’t want them to fly until they are ready,” he said.
He added there are no discussions with Russia about buying additional Soyuz seats. A deal with Boeing signed earlier this year provided NASA with two additional near-term Soyuz seats, and an option for three more in first half of 2019. NASA exercised that option in October. “We have seats to fly U.S. astronauts on Soyuz vehicles through the first half of 2019,” he said.
Shireman said there is a “whole spectrum of options” to get additional schedule margin of commercial crew vehicles are not ready by then. “But our confidence in the launch dates for SpaceX and for Boeing in their commercial crew vehicles is increasing as well,” he said.