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The first NASA astronauts to launch on a Falcon 9 rocket will have more than one new trip designed by SpaceX CEO Elon Musk.
Bob Behnken and Doug Hurley, who will be the first to fly a SpaceX Dragon to the International Space Station, will arrive at their launch pad in a Tesla Model X SUV. In addition to running the commercial spaceflight company, Musk also leads the company. electric car.
NASA revealed the SpaceX Model X on Wednesday (May 13), two weeks earlier. The launch is scheduled for May 27.
Related: SpaceX Crew Dragon Demo-2 mission in photos
“Here is some news from Tesla that everyone should love,” said Jim Bridenstine, NASA administrator. posted on Twitter. “Look at the Model X that will take Bob Behnken and Doug Hurley to the launch pad for the Demo-2 mission!”
The white SUV features decals of NASA’s red, white, and blue insignia, called the “meatball,” on its two front doors, and the agency’s resurrected logo, the red “worm” across the top of its hatchback. The Demo-2 Falcon 9 rocket will also be stamped with both NASA identifiers.
Approximately three hours before launch, after donning their space suits, Behnken and Hurley will exit NASA’s Neil A. Armstrong Operations and Checkout (O&C) building at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida and climb into the back seat of the Model X via of the falcon of the car. -back doors. The all-electric SUV will be used to drive them 9 miles (14 kilometers) to Launch Complex 39A.
The unit will mark the first time that NASA astronauts have brought a car to the launch pad and then left Earth.
The original US astronauts. The Mercury 7 astronauts were transferred from a hangar to their waiting Redstone or Atlas rockets using a modified trailer pulled by a Reo Motor Company tractor. The Gemini astronauts got into a trailer near the launch pad and then traveled in a transfer van the short way to their Titan thrusters.
The Apollo program introduced the first “Astrovan” in the form of a converted Clark Cortez motorhome. The white vehicle with a blue and red stripe and a large NASA “meatball” logo was used by moon-bound crews from 1968 to 1972, and then continued in service for the Skylab, Apollo-Soyuz and early missions. space shuttles.
A new Astrovan was unveiled in November 1983, with the ninth mission of the space shuttle. The modified Airstream Excella Motorhome sported a chrome body with a red, white, and blue stripe, a large NASA meatball, and enough room on board to accommodate larger transport crews.
NASA’s other commercial crew partner, the Boeing Company, also worked with Airstream to create the Astrovan II, a custom Airstream Atlas Touring Coach. Revealed in 2019, the new van is wrapped in graphics depicting the Boeing Starliner spacecraft that passengers in the van will launch aboard the space station.
SpaceX’s Tesla Model X was previously seen in January, without its newly applied NASA insignia decals, when it was used to drive Behnken and Hurley for a dress rehearsal on launch day.
The official use of the “meatball” and the “worm” in the same vehicle marks a return to NASA’s early 1980s livery. Since then, the space agency’s rules for the retro logo, if allowed, was that it never appears alongside the badge.
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