Friday, April 27, 2012 by willy

Artist’s rendition of SpaceX's Dragon spacecraft with solar panels fully deployed on orbit

In the wake of last year's space shuttle retirement, NASA is working with commercial space companies to develop private space taxis to carry cargo and astronauts to the International Space Station.

So far, two companies — Space Exploration Technologies (SpaceX) and Orbital Science Corp. — have won billions in funding to ferry food, supplies and scientific experiments to the space station on unmanned spacecraft. Those companies, as well as Blue Origin, Boeing, and Sierra Nevada Corp., are also working under contracts to develop manned vehicles capable of flying astronauts to and from the orbiting outpost.

Visit SPACE.com each day this week for a look at the major players in the race to build private spaceships for use by NASA and others.