SpaceX and NASA officials are vowing to keep crew safety the top priority Wednesday for the nation's first astronaut launch to orbit in nearly a decade. Weather forecasts are also being monitored Tuesday for the first launch of Americans from U.S. soil in nine years.
Veteran NASA astronauts Doug Hurley and Bob Behnken are set to make history, riding SpaceX's Falcon 9 rocket and Dragon capsule to the International Space Station on a test flight.
The mission name is DM-2 which stands for Demo Mission 2. DM-1 flew in March 2019 and had no humans on board, only a dummy in a spacesuit named Ripley.
The last crew launch from American soil was Space Shuttle Atlantis mission STS-135 on July 8, 2011. It took off from that exact same launchpad that SpaceX now leases from NASA. There were 82 shuttle launches from that pad before the shuttle retired (135 missions overall for the shuttle).
Dan Amarante talked with Rex Walheim, who flew on the space shuttle three times: 2002, 2008, and 2011. He was a Mission Specialist on the final space shuttle mission in July, 2011. He also flew with Hurley on that final mission, one of the astronauts on Wednesday’s scheduled launch.
Walheim has completed five spacewalks and has spent more than 36 days in space.
Wednesday’s launch is only a test mission, which means that they’re just there to make sure everything works alright. It’s important because it opens the door for much more frequent crew missions later this year and into the next few years.
The first operational flight is tentatively scheduled for August 30th, assuming everything works well with this demo mission.
SpaceX is on the cusp of becoming the first private company to put astronauts in orbit, something achieved by just three countries — Russia, the U.S. and China.
On the eve of the launch, NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine said from Kennedy Space Center that both the space agency and SpaceX have been diligent about making sure everyone in the launch loop knows they're free to halt the countdown if there's a concern.
