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What was intended to be a two-week test flight of SpaceX’s new astronaut transport capsule will now be a mission planned to last more than a month to assist a short-capacity crew aboard the International Space Station.
The launch of SpaceX’s Crew Dragon capsule, with two NASA astronauts, Douglas G. Hurley and Robert L. Behnken, is scheduled for May 27 from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida. He would arrive at the space station the next day.
“This is a high priority mission for the United States of America,” Jim Bridenstine, the NASA administrator, said during a press conference on Friday.
That will end a nearly nine-year drought since the last time people went to orbit from American soil. On July 8, 2011, the space shuttle Atlantis took off from Launchpad 39A; He returned to Earth 11 days later. Since then, NASA has relied on Russia and its Soyuz rockets for transportation to and from the space station.
Mr. Bridenstine noted that this would be only the fifth time that NASA astronauts have flown in a new spacecraft for the first time. Previous ones were Mercury, Gemini and Apollo during the 1960s and the space shuttle in 1981.
“We must not lose sight of the fact that this is a test flight,” said Mr. Bridenstine. “We are doing this to learn things. And it is also true that we are taking it very, very seriously from a security perspective.”
Like the last shuttle mission, the launch will take place at 39A, but almost everything else will be different. Instead of designing and operating his own spaceship as he did for space shuttles and Previous programs like landing on the Apollo Moon, NASA turned to two private companies, SpaceX and Boeing.
The two astronauts will also be able to use the restroom in the capsule for 19 hours from launch to docking on the space station. “The toilet?” Mr. Hurley said. “We will let you know how it works. They have one. We will test it and inform you when we return.”
Currently there are only three astronauts on board the International Space Station: two Russians, Anatoly Ivanishin and Ivan Vagner, and a NASA astronaut Christopher J. Cassidy. The station’s smallest crew is busy with maintenance, and that limits the amount of scientific research that can be done.
NASA officials decided to extend Mr. Hurley and Mr. Behnken’s stay on the space station so that they can assist Mr. Cassidy. The SpaceX capsule is currently certified to remain 119 days in orbit. Over time, oxygen atoms in the upper atmosphere react with materials in the capsule’s solar panels, reducing the amount of energy they generate.
The length of stay also depends on the status of the upcoming Crew Dragon, the first operational mission designated Crew-1, which will take four astronauts to the space station later this year. SpaceX and NASA need the Crew Dragon demo to return to Earth to certify that the spacecraft meets NASA’s safety requirements and is ready to begin routine missions.
“It is compensation,” said Kirk A. Shireman, program manager for NASA’s space station. “What we would like to do, from a spatial perspective, is to keep them in orbit as long as we can until the Crew-1 vehicle is almost ready.”
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