SpaceX, Boeing on Track to Launch Astronauts in 2017: NASA

SpaceX and Boeing are still on track to start launching astronauts to the International Space Station (ISS) in 2017, NASA officials said. NASA has contracted with both companies in an effort to restart a domestic crew-launch capability that the United States lost when the space shuttle fleet was grounded, in July 2011. For the past five years, the nation has been dependent on Russian Soyuz spacecraft to carry American astronauts to and from the ISS.