NASA assigns 4 astronauts to SpaceX mission scheduled for 2021

The crew, all veterans of earlier ISS missions, will embody Akihiko Hoshide with Japan’s JAXA area company, Thomas Pesquet of the European House Company and NASA’s Shane Kimbrough and Megan McArthur — who two months in the past watched her husband Robert Behnken co-pilot the first-ever crewed flight of SpaceX’s Crew Dragon capsule.

Placing 4 astronauts on SpaceX’s spring 2021 mission, dubbed Crew-2, will convey the variety of folks staffing the ISS to seven, permitting “NASA to successfully double the quantity of science that may be performed in area,” the company mentioned Tuesday.

5 individuals are at present on board the ISS: Two Russian cosmonauts and NASA’s Chris Cassidy, Douglas Hurley, and Behnken, The latter two arrived on the area station in Could after commanding SpaceX’s Crew Dragon capsule on its historic journey. It marked the primary time in historical past {that a} industrial car carried people into orbit and the primary crewed launch from US soil since NASA’s House Shuttle retired in 2011.

However that mission is not over but. Behnken and Hurley are anticipated to return dwelling from the ISS as quickly as this weekend, and their protected return might grant the Crew Dragon car official certification as a human-worthy spacecraft. And that may pave the best way for a Crew Dragon capsule to be launched on its first totally operational mission to the area station, Crew-1, which is slated for late September.

NASA has waited for years to regain the flexibility to fly its personal astronauts to and from the area station. After the Shuttle program ended, the area company needed to depend on Russia’s Soyuz autos to ferry NASA crews to the ISS, and america has paid Russia as a lot as $90 million per seat for these journeys.

Fairly than constructing its personal substitute for the House Shuttle, nevertheless, NASA requested the non-public sector to develop spacecraft succesful to design and develop its personal autos in order that the area company might concentrate on exploring deeper into the photo voltaic system.

In 2014, NASA awarded two fixed-price contracts: $4.2 billion for Boeing and $2.6 billion to SpaceX, which deliberate to design a crew-worthy model of the Dragon capsule that had already been flying cargo to and from the Worldwide House Station.

After each corporations struggled with growth delays, SpaceX beat Boeing to the launch pad with Hurley and Behnken’s crewed take a look at mission earlier this yr.

Boeing, which suffered important setbacks throughout a take a look at in December, is planning to repeat an uncrewed take a look at mission later this yr.

Nonetheless, having Crew Dragon in its spacecraft arsenal will grant NASA way more management over staffing the US-run portion of the ISS. And, as a result of SpaceX shall be permitted to promote further seats aboard its spacecraft, NASA astronauts could in the future discover themselves sharing a journey with vacationers, company scientists and even film stars.

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