America to launch crew for first time since 2011
What was intended as a two-week test flight of Spacex’s new astronautcarrying capsule will now be a mission planned to last more than a month to help a short-handed crew aboard the International Space Station.
The launch of Spacex’s Crew Dragon capsule, carrying two NASA astronauts, Douglas Hurley and Robert Behnken, is scheduled for May 27 from Kennedy Space Center in Florida. It would arrive at the space station the following day.
“This is a high-priority mission for the United States of America,” Jim Bridenstine, the NASA administrator, said during a news conference Friday.
It will end a drought of nearly nine years since the last time people headed to orbit from American soil. On July 8, 2011, the space shuttle Atlantis lifted off from Launchpad 39A; it returned to Earth 11 days later. Since then, NASA has relied on Russia and its Soyuz rockets for transportation to and from the space station.
“It’s probably a dream of every test pilot school student to have the opportunity to fly on a brand-new spaceship,” said Behnken, who flew aboard the space shuttle in 2008 and 2010, “and I’m lucky enough to get that opportunity.”
Bridenstine noted that this would be only the fifth time NASA astronauts have flown on a new spacecraft for the first time. The previous ones were Mercury, Gemini and Apollo during the 1960s and the space shuttle in 1981.
“We should not lose sight of the fact that this is a test flight,” Bridenstine said. “We’re doing this to learn things. And it’s also true we’re taking it very, very seriously from a safety perspective.”
Like the last shuttle mission, the launch will occur at 39A, but almost everything else will be different. Instead of designing and operating its own spaceship as it did for the space shuttles and earlier programs such as the Apollo moon landings, NASA has turned to two private companies, Spacex and Boeing.
Boeing’s spacecraft, Starliner, encountered two major software glitches during an uncrewed test flight in December and will repeat that mission before attempting to fly astronauts.
For Spacex, the May flight is the last step to certify that its spacecraft meets NASA’S needs and requirements. As the Crew Dragon approaches the space station, for example, the astronauts will fly the spacecraft manually before letting its automated system perform the docking.
The two astronauts will also get to use the bathroom facility in the capsule during the 19 hours from launch to docking at the space station. “The toilet?” Hurley said. “We’ll let you know how it works out. They have one. We’ll try it out, and we’ll let you know when we get back.”
Currently there are only three astronauts aboard the International Space Station — two Russians, Anatoly Ivanishin and Ivan Vagner, and one NASA astronaut, Christopher Cassidy. The smaller station crew is preoccupied with maintenance tasks, and that limits the amount of scientific research that can be done.
NASA officials decided to extend the stay of Hurley and Behnken at the space station so they can help Cassidy.