SpaceX confirmed on Monday, May 18, that astronauts will be onboard on its next flight. The announcement came after the planned Tuesday, May 19, flight of 60 Starlink satellites was postponed due to Tropical Storm Arthur.
Bob Behnken and Doug Hurley will board the SpaceX's Crew Dragon which will launch from the Kennedy Space Center on May 27, the first flight from US soil after 11 years.
With the delay of the Starlink mission, SpaceX can now focus on the next flight of Crew Dragon called Demo-2. Last week, NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine confirmed that the capsule is on schedule for liftoff from pad 39A at 4:33 p.m.. Meanwhile, Starlink is rescheduled to launch at 3:10 a.m..
A two-stage SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket lifts off from Launch Complex 39A at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida for Demo-1, the first uncrewed mission of the agency’s Commercial Crew Program. Liftoff was at 2:49 a.m. EST, March 2, 2019. The SpaceX Crew Dragon’s trip to the International Space Station is designed to validate end-to-end systems and capabilities, leading to certification to fly crew. NASA has worked with SpaceX and Boeing in developing the Commercial Crew Program spacecraft to facilitate new human spaceflight systems launching from U.S. soil with the goal of safe, reliable and cost-effective access to low-Earth orbit destinations, such as the space station.
The tropical storm had already caused issues for SpaceX's recovery fleet which had to shift around the Atlantic Ocean several times and seek shelter. The vessels, one of which includes the Of Course I Still Love You drone ship, are responsible for hosting Falcon 9 booster landings and catching falling rocket nose cones.
Bridenstine told Florida Today that Behnken and Hurley will depart Houston and arrive on Wednesday, May 20, at the Kennedy Space Center where they will continue their coronavirus quarantine procedures which started last week and will end ahead of the lift-off.
Bridenstine confirmed that the astronauts seem to be in "very good health" and he believes there is no opportunity for them to contract any virus or harmful bacteria. The NASA administrator also expressed his excitement "about launching them to the International Space Station."
The famous Astrovan will not transport the duo to pad 39A, but instead, a Tesla Model X all-electric SUV will be their service vehicle on launch day.
According to the plan, the astronauts will spend about 24 hours in Crew Dragon before they arrive at the ISS to mark the first time in nearly a decade that American astronauts were launched the US soil. However, in case of any delays, the Demo-2 launch will be moved to May 30.
Meet Bob and Doug
If all goes well on the May 27, Bob Behnken and Doug Hurley will go in the Astronaut Hall of Fame as the first astronauts to fly to space from American soil since 2011 when the shuttle program ended. They will also be the first to command an entirely new spacecraft since 1981.
NASA’s SpaceX Demo-2 mission will return U.S human spaceflight to the International Space Station from U.S. soil with astronauts Robert Behnken and Douglas Hurley on an American rocket and spacecraft for the first time since 2011. In March 2020, at a SpaceX processing facility on Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida, SpaceX successfully completed a fully integrated test of critical crew flight hardware ahead of Crew Dragon’s second demonstration mission to the International Space Station for NASA's Commercial Crew Program; the first flight test with astronauts onboard the spacecraft. Behnken and Hurley participated in the test, which included flight suit leak checks, spacecraft sound verification, display panel and cargo bin inspections, seat hardware rotations, and more
According to Florida Today, the experience will be extra special as Behnken and Hurley are long-time friends since they joined the astronaut class in 2000.
Behnken is from New York while Hurley is from Missouri. They have developed a close friendship as they were both military test pilots before becoming astronauts and they also met their spouses in the same astronaut class.
They even attended each other's weddings with Hurley as Behnken's best man when the latter married Megan McArthur. Hurley later tied the knot with Karen Nyberg. Both of their spouses are classmates in the same astronaut class.
In an interview in 2019, Behnken told The Atlantic that a certain Duane Ross who led the astronaut selection process somehow also picked his spouse and friends for him.
The close-knit astronaut couples currently reside in Houston and they learned to balance work and family while working with some occasional spaceflight.
