NASA declares that a SpaceX spacecraft will send two American astronauts to the International Space Station On May 27. The first crewed spaceflight from the US in nearly a decade.
Jim Bridenstine, the official of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, announced in a tweet that, “On May 27, NASA will once again launch American astronauts on American rockets from American soil.” After July 2011, the United States relies on Russian Soyuz spacecraft to send American astronauts to the ISS.
The US space organization is trying to administer the crewed mission in May. And is holding with the project despite the global coronavirus epidemic.
Astronauts Robert Behnken and Douglas Hurley will fly to the ISS on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket aboard. A Team Dragon spacecraft also made by SpaceX, the company founded by tech entrepreneur Elon Musk.
On May 27, they will lift off at 16:32 local time (20:32 UTC)from well-known launch pad 39A. The similar one used for the Apollo and space shuttle missions, at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida, NASA said.
Behnken and Hurley have been preparing for ages for the purpose. Which would leave the United States closer to no longer be relying on Russia for crewed flights. The Crew Dragon capsule is a revamped version of SpaceX’s Dragon capsule which has been utilized to carry supplies to the ISS since 2012.
It will take roughly 24 hours following liftoff for them to land with the ISS. The period of their stay aboard the ISS has not been decided.
One American spaceman and two Russian cosmonauts are currently aboard the ISS. The May purpose will be a milestone for NASA, which has had strain utilizing the page on the space shuttle era. Shuttles carried American astronauts into space for three decades but two of them also blew up.
After dropping the shuttle, NASA returned to private production to develop its next-generation rocket. And also SpaceX and Boeing have been struggling on rolling out a crewed capsule. SpaceX came up with Crew Dragon and Boeing the Starliner. But the Starliner experienced a delay in December during a test run.
SpaceX is now poise to become the first private company to send astronauts into space. In March, Musk’s Crew Dragon capsule did a circular trip to the ISS, which is in orbit more than 250 miles over Earth. With a mannequin on board, before turning to the Atlantic after six days in space. SpaceX has done the trip 15 times after 2012, though only to refuel the station.