Photo: Elon Musk/Twitter
On May 27, America is getting back in the space exploration game with the first launch of a crewed mission from the homeland since the retirement of the Space Shuttle in 2011. Other than that, this is also the first ever mission of the Commercial Crew Program, one that is likely to forever change space launches.
The Crew Dragon, the SpaceX-made capsule tasked with the mission, is already vertical on the launch pad at Cape Canaveral, having been put there, upright, at the end of last week. We all got to see the historic moment in a timelapse video posted by Elon Musk’s space company just a few days ago.
As the launch hour approaches, the man himself published another photo of the Crew Dragon/Falcon 9 assembly, a stunning image that does nothing but raise the excitement levels to even higher values.
The mission, officially called Demo-2, will take two American astronauts to the International Space Station (ISS) and several months later deliver them back to Earth. As its name says, Demo-2 is a test mission, designed to test the viability of the SpaceX craft.
The two astronauts are joint operations commander Robert Behnken and spacecraft commander Douglas Hurley. They will be on board, dressed in the shiny new SpaceX suits, to monitor the capsule and the flight, assess both and, if need be, step in to take control.
There are two privately-built spacecraft NASA is eyeing for missions. One is the Crew Dragon, which has already flown solo to the ISS and back, checking all the boxes in the process.
The other one is the Boeing Starliner, which attempted to do the same thing but failed to reach the required orbit and dock with the ISS due to a programming error.
The Crew Dragon launch is scheduled for May 26 at 4:32 EDT.
As the launch hour approaches, the man himself published another photo of the Crew Dragon/Falcon 9 assembly, a stunning image that does nothing but raise the excitement levels to even higher values.
The mission, officially called Demo-2, will take two American astronauts to the International Space Station (ISS) and several months later deliver them back to Earth. As its name says, Demo-2 is a test mission, designed to test the viability of the SpaceX craft.
The two astronauts are joint operations commander Robert Behnken and spacecraft commander Douglas Hurley. They will be on board, dressed in the shiny new SpaceX suits, to monitor the capsule and the flight, assess both and, if need be, step in to take control.
There are two privately-built spacecraft NASA is eyeing for missions. One is the Crew Dragon, which has already flown solo to the ISS and back, checking all the boxes in the process.
The other one is the Boeing Starliner, which attempted to do the same thing but failed to reach the required orbit and dock with the ISS due to a programming error.
The Crew Dragon launch is scheduled for May 26 at 4:32 EDT.
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