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SpaceX and NASA are set to send their next team of astronauts to the International Space Station (ISS) and October 23 has been set as the first launch date. The mission, named Crew-1, was originally scheduled for late September.
“Crew-1 will be launched in late October to accommodate spacecraft traffic for the next Soyuz crew rotation and best meet the needs of the International Space Station,” said the recent NASA statement.
The astronaut team will include Commander Michael Hopkins, Pilot Victor Glover and Mission Specialist Shannon Walker, all from NASA, as well as Mission Specialist Soichi Noguchi from the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) space program. The mission will be launched from Launch Complex 39A at Kennedy Space Center in Florida.
The announcement follows the completion of demo-2 earlier this month, in which veteran astronauts Bob Bhenkin and Doug Hurley successfully made a trip to the ISS inside a SpaceX capsule. Crew Dragon after launching aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket. The capsule was developed as part of NASA’s Commercial Crew program and was the first manned flight test of a commercially owned and operated human space system.
The purpose of Demo-2’s mission was to make sure that all of SpaceX’s systems were ready for regular trips to the space station, and its achievement made spaceflight capabilities human on US soil. Previously, American astronauts would buy seats on Russian rockets to reach orbit to the tune of around $ 90 million each. NASA hopes to establish a barter system for flights in the future – swapping seats instead of payments.
Crew-1 will be the first of six crewed operational missions between NASA and SpaceX under a $ 2.6 billion contract signed in 2014. A third crewed mission, Crew-2, is already planned for spring 2021. NASA astronauts Megan McArthur and Shane Kimbrough, JAXA astronaut Akihiko Hoshide and European Space Agency (ESA) astronaut Thomas Pesquet have been selected to be on board and are currently training with SpaceX.
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