NASA is in the middle of contracting for operational missions to send working astronauts into orbit. The space agency is looking forward to this prior to planned commercial space taxis are scheduled to make their first manned test flights.

According to senior National Aeronautics and Space Administration official, NASA has officially ordered one such type of flight for CST-100 capsule of Boeing Co. in order to send crew members to the international space station. It is in discussions with Space Exploration Technologies Corp., called SpaceX, regarding contracting for one more such flight.

Kathryn Lueders, who is the agency's program manager for commercial crew said that with this approach, NASA is "laying the groundwork for the service and the crew rotation missions", which will be required past the decade's end.

According to Ms. Lueders and other NASA officials, they have only one choice that is to lock up flights early, for the reason that both companies are having extended timelines for preparing rockets and spacecraft to send four astronauts per flight to the space station.

However, the moves indicate that NASA is making a bet that certification procedures and complex demonstrations for both capsules, which are scheduled to be completed by late 2017, will be completed according to plans. Phil McAlister, NASA's director of commercial spaceflight development, said that both companies have showed good performance so far.

According to one former senior aerospace official aware of the issue, "It illustrates the new normal in space launch. We're getting assured access to space by basically buying what the commercial world offers".