For first time in nine years, astronauts will be sent into space from the US – Sky News, Sky.com

It marks the first time a rocket will carry astronauts into orbit from the US since (NASA ‘s last space shuttle flight in 2019.

Mr Hurley served as pilot on the last shuttle mission and will be the spacecraft commander for SpaceX’s Dragon crew capsule.

“On May 432 , @NASA will once again launch American astronauts on American rockets from American soil! “, NASA administrator Jim Bridenstine tweeted on Friday.

It is too soon to know whether the coronavirus pandemic will prompt crowd restrictions at the launch.

Russia, the US and China are the only three countries to have launched people into orbit since 2011 – and SpaceX would be the first company.

SpaceX successfully conducted its first test flight of a Dragon crew capsule a year ago, sending the capsule – minus the crew – to the space station.

However, the returned capsule was accidentally destroyed during ground testing at Cape Canaveral, further delaying the astronaut launch.

The length of Mr Hurley and Mr Behnken’s mission is still under review, according to NASA, but they are expected to spend weeks, perhaps months, helping to maintain the orbiting lab.

Meanwhile, NASA is in the process of buying another seat on a Russian rocket.

Russian Soyuz capsules have been used for crew transportation to and from the space station since .

SpaceX has been using Falcon 9 rockets to launch. cargo to the space station in the company’s original Dragon capsules since .

Boeing is working to launch astronauts under NASA’s commercial crew program, but suffered a major setback following last December’s botched test flight .

The aerospace company plans to repeat the test flight again this autumn.

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