Boeing is on its way to launching astronauts into space for NASA by 2017. Boeing’s NASA commercial crew program passed a critical test recently which is its second milestone. NASA engineers have been working with Boeing to send astronauts into space with a new concept called the “space taxi.”

It took NASA 3 weeks to examine the company’s work at the former space shuttle processing facility at the agency’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida, as well as a future mission control center. The space craft code named CST-100 is one of the two funded competitors to take astronauts to the International Space Station. The plan is to replace the Soyuz flights that fly crew to the space station from Kazakhstan.

The CST-100 is an advanced space craft that is designed to carry upto 7 crew atop the powerful Atlas V rocket.

This would replace the Soyuz flights that fly crew to the space station from Kazakhstan. The CST-100 spacecraft is designed to carry a crew of up to seven people and launch atop an Atlas V rocket. The CST will simplify the operation of travelling to the space station and back and lower the cost of launching complete crews to the ISS.