NASA Ready To Announce The First Astronauts to Fly SpaceX and Boeing’s Commercial Spaceships: Watch the Event Live
NASA is now ready to announce who are the first astronauts for the flights of SpaceX and Boeing’s commercial spaceships. Tomorrow, on 3 August, at around 11 a.m. EDT, NASA will broadcast the live video of their announcement, so be sure to check the link at the end of this article.
The event is huge because the last American spacecraft was retired in 2011 and ever since that day, NASA had to rely on Russia’s Soyuz spaceships to get to the ISS (the International Space Station).
Now, both SpaceX and Boeing are each working on spacecraft that will enable NASA to send astronauts with American spacecraft. However, both companies have had some problems with their vehicles lately (be it technical issues or just delays), and they have to prove that their spacecraft are safe for crewed missions to the ISS and that they can also bring them back to Earth.
To certify that the vehicles are ready to be used by NASA, the SpaceX Crew Dragon and Boeing’s CST-100 Starliner must pass three test missions: one without a crew and two with a crew. The first test was set for 2017, but it was delayed to this end of summer (Boeing delaying it to the end of the year).
Who Will Be Part of the Commercial Crew?
According to their achievements, we’re sure that among the first astronauts there will be Bob Behnken, Eric Boe, Doug Hurley, and Sunita “Suni” Williams. They will undoubtedly be part of the crew because they are veterans and have assisted Boeing and SpaceX for the last three years – while the companies worked on their spacecraft and systems.
There will be at least eight astronauts announced tomorrow – each crewed test flight will have at least two astronauts.
Do not forget: around 11 a.m. EDT on August 3, check out this page and click here to see NASA’s live event.
Doris’s passion for writing started to take shape in college where she was editor-in-chief of the college newspaper. Even though she ended up working in IT for more than 7 years, she’s now back to what he always enjoyed doing. With a true passion for technology, Doris mostly covers tech-related topics.
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