Astronauts picked for SpaceX, Boeing test flights
First crew will fly by next spring or summer
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. — NASA on Friday assigned the astronauts who will ride the first commercial capsules into orbit next year and bring crew launches back to the United States.
SpaceX and Boeing are shooting for a test flight of their capsules by the end of this year or early next year, with the first crews flying from Cape Canaveral by next spring or summer.
Nine astronauts were 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 Station.
“For the first time since 2011, we are on the brink of launching American astronauts on American rockets from American soil,” said NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine, who made the introductions at Johnson Space Center.
U.S. astronauts now take Russian capsules to the space station, with NASA paying as much as $82 million a seat.
Boeing’s first Starliner crew will include a former NASA astronaut who commanded the last shuttle flight in 2011, Chris Ferguson, who’s now a Boeing employee. The other commercial crew members are still with NASA. All have military backgrounds.
The seven men and two women pumped their fists into the air and gave thumbs-up as they strode onto the stage to cheers from the crowd.
“As a test pilot, it doesn’t get any better than this,” said astronaut Nicole Aunapu Mann, a naval aviator who will make her first trip into space on the first Starliner crew.
She later said the energy in the packed auditorium was incredible.
“We’re ushering in this new era of American spaceflight. I really think it’s just the beginning,” Mann told The Associated Press.
NASA has been paying billions to SpaceX and Boeing to develop the crew capsules to pick up where the shuttles left off, while also paying billions for cargo deliveries to the space station by SpaceX and Northrop Grumman. The cargo missions started in 2012. The crew missions have been delayed repeatedly because of the technical challenges and difficulties of making spacecraft safe for humans. A recent abort test by Boeing resulted in leaking engine fuel.
Astronaut Doug Hurley, who will be on the first crew of the SpaceX Dragon, hinted at the delays when he said, “The first flight is something you dream about as a test pilot, and you don’t think it’s ever going to happen to you. But looks like it might.”
“Oh, it better,” Bridenstine chimed in.
Besides Ferguson and Mann, the initial commercial crew members are Eric Boe, Sunita Williams and John Cassada riding on Boeing. Robert Behnken, Douglas Hurley, Victor Glover and Michael Hopkins will fly with SpaceX.
SpaceX President Gwynne Shotwell took a photo of the astronauts before assuring them, “We won’t let you down.”
Boeing’s Starliners will soar on United Launch Alliance’s Atlas V rockets. Dragons, meanwhile, will fly on SpaceX’s own Falcon 9 rockets. The race to get astronauts to the space station first is real; a U.S. flag that flew on the first space shuttle flight in 1981 and the last shuttle flight in 2011 awaits the winner.
A white SpaceX launch suit and a blue Boeing launch suit stood on display behind the astronauts onstage.
Ferguson told the gathering that these new high-tech capsules will have a higher emphasis on safety than the shuttle did, with full abort systems. The group likened the spacecraft to flying an iPhone, with a minimal number of switches compared with the 3,000 switches in the shuttle cockpit.
As for being the only non-NASA guy on board, Ferguson said later during a Reddit “Ask Me Anything” program that Boeing always uses company test pilots for first flights “and the Starliner is no exception.”
Ferguson noted he’s been involved with the Boeing capsule since the beginning.
“So good or bad, it’s got my name on it, and I’m sure it’s going to be good,” he told the AP.