SpaceX and NASA to launch first manned flight in nine years

NASA astronauts Bob Behnken and Doug Hurley will be piloting the Crew Dragon capsule to their destination, the International Space Station. 2, 2020, after almost two months on the ISS, Astronauts Doug Hurley and Bob Behnken successfully returned to Earth and landed in the Gulf of Mexico.

In 2011, the United States retired its Space Shuttle fleet. All that and more awaits SpaceX, if the operation today is successful.

For the last decade, NASA has bought seats aboard Russian Soyuz rockets to fly United States crews to the International Space Station. The people on the Demo 2 shall become the first Americans to enter space from a spacecraft taking off american soil after NASA ended the Space Shuttle Program in 2011.

Elon Musk's SpaceX is set to launch the first crewed spaceflight by a private company on Wednesday, May 27. Should SpaceX prove that the USA is no longer dependent on Russian rockets, the U.S. can make operational decisions without the Kremlin's input.

Crew Dragon is based on the design of SpaceX's original Dragon cargo capsule, which is now in service providing operational resupply services to the Space Station.

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