Elon Musk founded company to send veteran space travelers for NASA
Source:AFP Published: 2020/5/24 17:53:40
In the beginning, everyone was skeptical. But Elon Musk's SpaceX defied expectations - and on Wednesday hopes to make history by ferrying two NASA astronauts into space, the first crewed flight from US soil in nine years.
The general public, in a nod to virus restrictions, has been told to watch via a livestream as Crew Dragon is launched by a Falcon 9 rocket toward the International Space Station.
NASA's Commercial Crew program, aimed at developing private spacecraft to transport US astronauts in to space, began under Barack Obama. But his successor sees it as a symbol of his strategy to reassert US domination of space, both military - with his creation of the Space Force - and civilian. He has ordered NASA to return to the moon in 2024, an unlikely timetable but one that has given the storied space agency a boost.
In the 22 years since the first components of the ISS were launched, only spacecraft developed by NASA and by the Russian space agency have carried crews there.
NASA used the illustrious shuttle program - huge, extremely complex, winged ships that carried dozens of astronauts into space for three decades. But their staggering cost - $200 billion for 135 flights - and two fatal accidents finally put an end to the program. The last shuttle, Atlantis, landed on July 21, 2011.
Afterwards, NASA astronauts learned Russian and traveled to the ISS in the Russian Soyuz rocket from Kazakhstan, in a partnership which survived political tensions between Washington and Moscow. But it was only ever meant to be a temporary arrangement. NASA had entrusted two private companies - aviation giant Boeing and upstart SpaceX - with the task of designing and building capsules that would replace the shuttles.
Nine years later, SpaceX - founded by Musk, the outspoken South African entrepreneur who also built PayPal and Tesla, in 2002 - is ready to launch.
At 4:33 pm (2033 GMT) on Wednesday, a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket is set to take off from Launch Pad 39A with the Crew Dragon capsule at its top. NASA has awarded SpaceX more than $3 billion in contracts since 2011 to build the spacecraft.
The capsule will be crewed by Robert Behnken and Douglas Hurley, both veteran space travelers.
Newspaper headline: SpaceX ready to launch astronauts
This NASA photo obtained on Tuesday shows the SpaceX Dragon resupply ship approaching the International Space Station as both spacecraft orbited 257 miles above the Sahara on December 8. Photo: AFP
US President Donald Trump will be among the spectators at Kennedy Space Center in Florida to witness the launch, which has been given the green light despite months of shutdowns due to the coronavirus pandemic.The general public, in a nod to virus restrictions, has been told to watch via a livestream as Crew Dragon is launched by a Falcon 9 rocket toward the International Space Station.
NASA's Commercial Crew program, aimed at developing private spacecraft to transport US astronauts in to space, began under Barack Obama. But his successor sees it as a symbol of his strategy to reassert US domination of space, both military - with his creation of the Space Force - and civilian. He has ordered NASA to return to the moon in 2024, an unlikely timetable but one that has given the storied space agency a boost.
In the 22 years since the first components of the ISS were launched, only spacecraft developed by NASA and by the Russian space agency have carried crews there.
NASA used the illustrious shuttle program - huge, extremely complex, winged ships that carried dozens of astronauts into space for three decades. But their staggering cost - $200 billion for 135 flights - and two fatal accidents finally put an end to the program. The last shuttle, Atlantis, landed on July 21, 2011.
Afterwards, NASA astronauts learned Russian and traveled to the ISS in the Russian Soyuz rocket from Kazakhstan, in a partnership which survived political tensions between Washington and Moscow. But it was only ever meant to be a temporary arrangement. NASA had entrusted two private companies - aviation giant Boeing and upstart SpaceX - with the task of designing and building capsules that would replace the shuttles.
Nine years later, SpaceX - founded by Musk, the outspoken South African entrepreneur who also built PayPal and Tesla, in 2002 - is ready to launch.
At 4:33 pm (2033 GMT) on Wednesday, a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket is set to take off from Launch Pad 39A with the Crew Dragon capsule at its top. NASA has awarded SpaceX more than $3 billion in contracts since 2011 to build the spacecraft.
The capsule will be crewed by Robert Behnken and Douglas Hurley, both veteran space travelers.
Newspaper headline: SpaceX ready to launch astronauts
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