NASA astronauts will mark the return of humans in space aboard an American rocket and spacecraft. The American space organization on Wednesday invited media to attend SpaceX's upcoming Demo-2 mission, which confirmed that the Elon-Musk founded company is the first private spaceflight agency to return crewed orbital spaceflight to American soil after nearly a decade of absence.
The DM-2 crewed mission is scheduled to debut "no earlier than mid-to-late May." Its success will determine whether or not SpaceX will continue to support regular crew missions in space.
NASA will send American astronauts Dough Hurley and Bob Behnken to the International Space Station (ISS) for what's believed to be an extended long-duration stay. The original plan was to send the crew only for a week's stay, but both NASA and SpaceX have agreed to consider extending the duration of the test flight, somewhere between 1-3 months.
To prepare for the planned extended stay in space, both Hurley and Behnken have been continuously training for life and duty aboard the ISS at the Johnson Space Center.
The big day is on the way: We're launching astronauts to space from American soil once again. @Astro_Doug Hurley & @AstroBehnken continued @space_station & spacewalk training this week for their upcoming flight on NASA's @SpaceX DM-2 @Commercial_Crew mission. #LaunchAmerica pic.twitter.com/Yr3vBcxQgo — Johnson Space Center (@NASA_Johnson) February 22, 2020
NASA plans to keep more than one astronaut in the ISS when crew members leave the station later this year, thus the proposal for an extension. The space agency also wants to make sure that astronaut Chris Cassidy will have ample support in the person of Behnken, who is a veteran spacewalker, should any extra-vehicular activity take place.
To further test the capability of SpaceX in terms of human spaceflight, DM-2 will also feature splashdown landing and recovery procedures apart from launch and autonomous docking operations with the ISS. This means that astronauts Hurley and Behnken's splashdown in the Atlantic Ocean will also determine whether DM-2 is a success or otherwise.
It's worth noting that the CST-100 Starliner crew capsule owned by Boeing was also concerned NASA's partner in returning astronauts to the ISS. However, there were some errors to its orbital flight test last year in December that lead to an extensive investigation and corrections from NASA.
Boeing's failure became SpaceX's triumph, as now it is clear that the latter company will be the first private entity to return crewed spaceflight in the United States after eight long years.
On Wednesday, SpaceX had successfully launched 60 more of its Starlink satellites to low-orbit Earth following an expected mishap Monday, the original schedule for the launch. The newly launched satellites are the latest additions to the company's goal of building a mega-constellation of more than 40,000 satellites in space.
