Elon Musk's SpaceX prepares for upcoming astronaut mission to International Space Station - National Post

CAPE CANAVERAL — Entrepreneur Elon Musk’s SpaceX is set to launch two American astronauts to the International Space Station on Wednesday from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida, ending the U.S. space agency’s nine-year hiatus in human spaceflight.

California-based SpaceX’s Crew Dragon capsule carrying astronauts Doug Hurley and Bob Behnken and its Falcon 9 rocket is due to lift off at 4:33 p.m. EDT (2033 GMT) on Wednesday from the same launch pad used by NASA’s last space shuttle mission in 2011.

NASA astronauts Bob Behnken (second from left) and Doug Hurley (right) walk with NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine (left) and Robert Cabana (second from right), the director of NASA’s John F. Kennedy Space Center, after arriving at the Kennedy Space Center on May 20, 2020 in Cape Canaveral, Florida. The astronauts arrived for the May 27th scheduled inaugural flight of SpaceX’s Crew Dragon spacecraft. Joe Raedle/Getty Images

President Donald Trump and Vice President Mike Pence will view the launch in person, a White House spokesman said.

For Musk, SpaceX and NASA, a safe flight would mark a milestone in the quest to produce reusable spacecraft that can make space travel more affordable. Musk is the founder and CEO of SpaceX and CEO of Tesla Inc.

“Bob and I have been working on this program for five years, day in and day out,” Hurley, 53, said as he and Behnken, 49, arrived at the Kennedy Space Center from Houston last week. “It’s been a marathon in many ways, and that’s what you’d expect to develop a human-rated space vehicle that can go to and from the International Space Station.”

This NASA TV video frame grab shows a SpaceX in-flight abort test on January 19, 2020 at the Kennedy Space Center, Florida. SpaceX simulated its emergency abort system in January on an unmanned spacecraft, the last major test before it plans to send NASA astronauts to the International Space Station. The space company launched its Crew Dragon capsule from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida at 10:30 am (1530 GMT) to check the capsule’s ability to reliably carry crew to safety in the event of an emergency on ascent. HANDOUT/NASA TV/AFP via Getty Images

NASA, hoping to stimulate a commercial space marketplace, awarded $3.1 billion to SpaceX and $4.5 billion to Boeing Co. to develop duelling space capsules, experimenting with a contract model that allows the space agency to buy astronaut seats from the two companies.

Boeing’s CST-100 Starliner capsule is not expected to launch its first crew until 2021.

NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine declared the mission a “go” last week at Kennedy Space Center after space agency and SpaceX officials convened for final engineering checks.

SpaceX successfully tested Crew Dragon without astronauts last year in its first orbital mission to the space station. That vehicle was destroyed the following month during a ground test when one of the valves for its abort system burst, causing an explosion that triggered a nine-month engineering investigation that ended in January.

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2020-05-26 12:43:00Z
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