New York, May 30 (IANS): Dragon V2, the new spaceship that would be able to carry astronauts to and from the International Space Station (ISS), was unveiled in California.
NASA hopes the new vessel will be ready for manned missions by 2017 or 2018.
Developed by California-based SpaceX, Dragon V2, that was unveiled late Thursday, is a modified version of the Dragon spacecraft that has performed three unmanned re-supply missions to the Space Station since October 2012.
Two other companies, Boeing and Sierra Nevada Corp., also have contracts with NASA to build vehicles to shuttle astronauts, but SpaceX may have an advantage, wired.com reported.
They are basically tricking out their current Dragon capsule with thrusters that will give the crew the ability to abort by separating from its rocket if something goes wrong.