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Illustration of an artist representing a SpaceX Crew Dragon spacecraft moored to the International Space Station (ISS). The first demonstration mission of Crew Dragon, an unarmed flight to the ISS, is scheduled for January 7, 2019.
Credit: NASA
We now know when the new SpaceX astronaut taxi will be heading to orbit for the first time.
The inaugural flight of the capsule Crew Dragon – Demo-1 (unprepared test mission aboard the International Space Station) (ISS) – is due to be launched on January 7, announced today officials from NASA (November 21).
Crew Dragon will take off over a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from the historic Launch Complex 39A at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida, which also served as a starting point for Apollo lunar missions and flights. space shuttle over the years. [In Photos: A Behind-the-Scenes Look at SpaceX’s Crew Dragon Spaceship]
SpaceX is developing Crew Dragon to transport astronauts to and from the ISS, as part of a multi-billion dollar contract with NASA. The first crew test flight of the capsule, known as Demo-2, is currently scheduled for June 2019; an "abandonment test" in flight proving that the Crew Dragon emergency evacuation systems will take place between the two demonstration missions, NASA officials announced in the bulletin. news published today.
Dragon's robotic cargo version offers unprepared replenishment missions to the ISS since 2010, as part of a separate SpaceX contract with NASA.
Aerospace giant Boeing has also signed a commercial crew contract with NASA, which it seeks to fulfill using the CST-100 Starliner capsule. Starliner unmanned and crewed test flights are scheduled to take place in March 2019 and August 2019, with a flight dropping test sandwiched between the two.
Starliner will fly over the United Launch Alliance Atlas V rockets in the near future.
NASA is counting on SpaceX and Boeing to end US dependence on Russian Soyuz rockets and spacecraft to allow astronauts to travel to the lab in orbit. This is the case since July 2011, when NASA grounded its fleet of space shuttles after 30 years of activity.
The last launch of the Soyuz crew to the ISS on 11 October had to be halted after the rocket had problems about two minutes after the flight began. The two crew members, NASA astronaut Nick Hague and cosmonaut Alexey Ovchinin, made an emergency landing safely in their Soyuz spacecraft.
An investigation revealed the cause of the launch failure through a deformed sensor, which resulted in an abnormal separation of one of the four Soyuz strap boosters.
The next crew launch of Soyuz ISS is scheduled for December 3rd.
Mike Wall's book on the search for extraterrestrial life, "Over there"(Grand Central Publishing, 2018, illustrated by Karl Tate) is out now. Follow him on Twitter @michaeldwall. follow us @Spacedotcomor Facebook. Originally published on Space.com.
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