SpaceX set for debut astronaut mission

CAPE CANAVERAL : Entrepreneur Elon Musk’s SpaceX is set to launch two American astronauts to the International Space Station on Wednesday from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida, ending the US space agency’s nine-year hiatus in human spaceflight.

California-based SpaceX’s Crew Dragon capsule carrying astronauts Doug Hurley and Bob Behnken and its Falcon 9 rocket is due to lift off at 4:33 p.m local time on Wednesday from the same launch pad used by NASA’s last space shuttle mission in 2011.

President Donald Trump and Vice President Mike Pence will view the launch in person, a White House spokesman said.

For Musk, SpaceX and NASA, a safe flight would mark a milestone in the quest to produce reusable spacecraft that can make space travel more affordable. Musk is the founder and CEO of SpaceX and CEO of Tesla Inc. “Bob and I have been working on this programme for five years, day in and day out,” Hurley, 53, said as he and Behnken, 49, arrived at the Kennedy Space Center from Houston last week. “It’s been a marathon in many ways, and that’s what you’d expect to develop a human-rated space vehicle that can go to and from the International Space Station.”

NASA, hoping to stimulate a commercial space marketplace, awarded $3.1 billion to SpaceX and $4.5 billion to Boeing Co to develop duelling space capsules, experimenting with a contract model that allows the space agency to buy astronaut seats from the two companies.