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Boeing selects Atlas V rocket for space taxi service

10 August 2011

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THE next time astronauts launch from US soil to the International Space Station, it could be on an Atlas V rocket. Aerospace giant Boeing last week chose the Atlas V, so far used to loft satellites into orbit, as the rocket for the CST-100 crew capsule it is developing.

Now that the space shuttle has been retired, NASA plans to hitch rides on Russian Soyuz vehicles to get its astronauts to the station. But within a few years it wants to switch to US-based commercial space taxi…

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