READY FOR SPACE AGAIN

FIRST US COMMERCIAL CAPSULES

An unmanned Boeing flight test is scheduled for later this year, with the first crew on board in mid-2019, Nasa said. For SpaceX, a demo flight with no passengers is set for November 2018. The first manned flight is set for April 2019

Nine astronauts – eight active Nasa members and one astronaut - turned corporate crew member – have been named to ride the SpaceX Dragon and Boeing Starliner capsules — five on the first crew flights and four on the second round of missions to the International Space Statio

For the past seven years, NASA astronauts have hitched rides to the orbiting outpost on Russia's Soyuz spacecraft – at a cost of some $80 million a seat

In addition to naming the crews of the test flights, NASA also announced the four astronauts who will fly aboard the first operational Starliner and Dragon missions to the space station. Josh Cassada, 45, will fly with Sunita (’Suni’) Williams, 52, aboard NASA's first contracted Starliner mission. Williams previously logged 321 days in orbit on two stays aboard the space station, most recently returning to the Earth in 2012

NASA astronauts Robert Behnken, 48, and Douglas Hurley, 51, will fly together as SpaceX's first Dragon crew

Indian-origin US astronaut Sunita Williams is among nine people named by NASA to ride the first commercial capsules into orbit next year and bring crew launches back to the US after the end of the nation’s space shuttle programme in 2011