NASA tells Boeing it's out of race for station cargo launch contract

By Irene Klotz

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (Reuters) - U.S. space agency NASA has dumped Boeing Co from a multibillion-dollar competition to fly cargo to the International Space Station, company officials said on Thursday.

Boeing was offering an unmanned version of its Starliner CST-100 space taxi, a passenger spaceship under development as part of a separate NASA programme.

"We received a letter from NASA and are out of CRS-2," Boeing spokeswoman Kelly Kaplan wrote in an email, referring to NASA's Commercial Resupply Services contract.

"I don't think we'll know the 'why' until our debrief with NASA," she added.

(Reporting by Irene Klotz; Editing by Christian Plumb)