Sunita Williams part of new Nasa mission

HOUSTON: Indian-American Sunita Williams is among the nine astronauts named by Nasa to fly the first missions into space on commercially provided rockets and capsules from next year.

They will fly on Boeing and SpaceX vehicles in 2019.

The other astronauts named for the missions are Eric Boe, Christopher Ferguson, Nicole Aunapu Mann, Robert Behnken, Douglas Hurley, Josh Cassada, Victor Glover and Michael Hopkins. The seven men and two women pumped their fists in the air and gave thumbs-up as they strode onto the stage to cheers from the crowd on Friday.

These pioneering flights to the International Space Station aboard commercially built crew capsules will be the first leaving US soil to put people into orbit since the iconic space shuttle programme ended in 2011.

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 demonstration flight with no passengers is set for November, and the first manned flight set for April 2019.

Those named for the crew test flights for Boeing’s Starliner include Nasa shuttle veterans Boe and Ferguson, along with Mann, a naval aviator who was named a Nasa astronaut in 2013 and will be making her first flight to space.

SpaceX’s first crew tests will be manned by shuttle veterans Behnken and Hurley.

After that, the companies will move on to actual missions.

Nasa “has contracted six missions, with as many as four astronauts per mission, for each company,” the agency said.

Williams, a Nasa veteran, retired Navy captain and experienced space shuttle astronaut, will be on board Starliner’s first mission along with Cassada, a Navy pilot making his first flight to space.

SpaceX’s first crew will include naval aviator Glover, also a novice to spaceflight, and shuttle veteran Hopkins.

“What an exciting and amazing day,” Jim Bridenstine, Nasa’s administrator, said at the announcement.