News about the latest Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) and NASA’s decision has emerged. Two veteran astronauts, Shannon Walker and Soichi Noguchi, have been enrolled in a mission to the ISS on SpaceX’s second piloted Crew Dragon.
The astronauts will join astronaut Victor Glover and commander Mike Hopkins on a scheduled expedition in orbit for six months. Their mission will begin later this year from pad 39A at NASA’s Kennedy SpaceCenter. For Walker will be the second spaceflight, while her colleague, Noguchi, will mark his third trip into orbit.
A SpaceX Journey by NASA
Besides the recent news about the last two astronauts enrolled, NASA didn’t release any statements about the Crew 1 or USCV-1 mission, dubbed Demo-2. The task would be to send two NASA astronauts, Bob Behnken and Doug Hurley, to the space station. The space agency stated that the Demo-2 test flight is under development. It could launch anytime soon, most likely in mid-late May.
Behnken and Hurley are currently training for the mission. The Demo-2 flight will reach its first orbital liftoff with astronauts from the US. The last space shuttle mission was in July 2011.
As for the upcoming mission, the four astronauts prepare, NASA and JAXA expect a success. Hopkins has been enrolled in one long-duration space station mission, while Glover is training for the first spaceflight. Noguchi spent 177 days in space for the latest space missions. He succeeded in logging more time in space than any other member of his team. Noguchi first enrolled in 2005 for the Discovery shuttle mission. Then, in 2009, he marked another spaceflight on a Russian Soyuz rocket.
Astronaut Walker, on the other hand, started her career as a space shuttle robotics controller back in 1987, for the Johnson Space Center. NASA chose her in 2002 as an astronaut candidate. She succeeded in logging 163 days in orbit since 2010.
Tiesha loves to share her passion for everything that’s beautiful in this world. Apart from writing on her beauty blog and running her own beauty channel on Youtube, she also enjoys traveling and photography. Tiesha covers various stories on the website.