America’s National Aeronautics & Space Administration (NASA) awarded $269.3 million to four companies to develop rockets and spacecrafts for its future manned spaceflight missions.

NASA is looking for a quicker and less expensively way to carry astronauts to space, as its aging fleet of its space shuttles is all set to retire at the end of this year.

The $269.3 million award is a part of NASA’s commercial crew development program, supported by the Obama administration, which believes that commercial companies will be able to take people to and from orbit more at lower costs.

Program’s acting director Philip McAlister at NASA said they received twenty-two proposals and sought additional information on eight of them before choosing the winners.

Speaking on the topic, Mr. McAlister said, “We are hopefully going to make a lot of progress over this next year so we can get there as soon as we can.”

However, he added that the success of the selected companies would depend on future funding from NASA.

Hawthorne-based Space Exploration Technologies Corp. and Boeing Co., Washington-based space venture Blue Origin and Sierra Nevada Corp. of Sparks are winners which will share $269.3 million funding to develop new solutions to carry astronauts to space.