NASA’s newest test pilots are veteran astronauts

Flight marks the return of astronaut launches from the United States

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. — The two astronauts who will test fly SpaceX’s brand new rocketship are classmates and friends, veteran spacefliers married to veteran spacefliers, and fathers of young sons.

Together, they will end a nineyear drought for NASA when they blast into orbit next week from Florida’s Kennedy Space Center.

Retired Marine Col. Doug Hurley will be in charge of launch and landing, a fitting assignment for the pilot of NASA’s last space shuttle flight.

Air Force Col. Bob Behnken, a mechanical engineer with six spacewalks on his resume, will oversee rendezvous and docking at the International Space Station.

Hurley, 53, and Behnken, 49, are NASA’s first test pilot crew in decades.

“It’s probably a dream of every test pilot school student to have the opportunity to fly on a brand new spaceship, and I’m lucky enough to get that opportunity with my good friend,” Behnken said.

Their flight will mark the return of NASA astronaut launches to the U.S., the first by a private company.

They’ve got Robert Crippen’s respect. Crippen and the late John Young rode NASA’s first space shuttle, Columbia, into orbit on April 12, 1981. Their twoday flight was especially dangerous: It was the first launch of a shuttle, with no dry run in space in advance.

While SpaceX’s Dragon crew capsule and its escape system have already been demonstrated in flight — with mannequins — there are no guarantees. In spaceflight, there never are. “So both Doug and Bob, I think, they’re brave gentlemen and I admire both of them,” Crippen said.

SpaceX President Gwynne Shotwell also has high praise for Hurley and Behnken, who have worked closely with her company for the past several years. She made sure employees knew them not only as “badass” astronauts and test pilots, but dads and husbands.

“I wanted to bring some humanity to this very deeply technical effort as well,” she said.

Hurley and Behnken are married to fellow members of their 2000 astronaut class at NASA: newly retired Karen Nyberg and Megan McArthur.

SPACEX VIA AP NASA astronauts Bob Behnken, left, and Doug Hurley, wearing SpaceX spacesuits, walk through the Crew Access Arm connecting the launch tower to the SpaceX Crew Dragon spacecraft.