Boeing Co. have won a NASA award worth $92.3 million for future work on designing a spacecraft which could carry crews to space stations.

Boeing are under contract with NASA to design the CST-100, which will carry a crew of seven people into low orbit over the earth. Boeing has said that the craft is bigger than Apollo capsules and able to launch from different rockets. Boeing officials said they would apply what they have learned from building commercial airplanes, launch systems and satellites to build and fly the upcoming CST 100 in 2015.

Boeing are working with Bigelow Aerospace and have chosen United Technologies Corp's Pratt and Whitney unit to help design a launch abort system for the spacecraft.

With NASA winding down the shuttle program, several companies are now competing to develop a craft to take crews and cargo to the International Space Station. Until one of them is ready, American astronauts can get rides to the space station on Russian capsules.

KitGuru says: To boldly go, where no crew of seven has gone before.

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