NASA, Japan add 2 more astronauts to SpaceX’s 1st operational Crew Dragon flight – Space.com

The SpaceX Crew Dragon spacecraft for the Demo-2 mission at Florida’s Put Hover on Feb. 13, 2020.

(Image: © SpaceX)

The passenger checklist for SpaceX’s first operational crewed mission is now total.

NASA astronaut Shannon Walker and Japanese spaceflyer Soichi Noguchi will waft to the World Put Position (ISS) aboard SpaceX’s Crew Dragon spacecraft on that voyage, officials equipped at this time (March 31). The duo will be half of NASA astronauts Michael Hopkins and Victor Glover Jr., bringing the full crew size as a lot as four.

Or no longer it’s unclear when the quartet’s mission will originate. This would possibly well per chance apply SpaceX’s first-ever crewed mission, a test flight called Demo-2 that can carry NASA astronauts Bob Behnken and Doug Hurley to and from the ISS. Demo-2 is scheduled to originate in mid- to leisurely May maybe well presumably also honest. 

Video: Glimpse SpaceX’s Demo-2 Crew Dragon roam in a extreme prelaunch test

Crew Dragon has already visited the orbiting lab as soon as, in March 2019 on an uncrewed mission called Demo-1.

SpaceX holds a $2.6 billion NASA contract to waft six operational ISS missions with Crew Dragon and the company’s Falcon 9 rocket. Boeing holds a the same deal, price $4.2 billion, which the aerospace big will fulfill the use of a capsule called the CST-100 Starliner.

But Starliner is no longer yet ready to carry astronauts to orbit. The capsule suffered several instrument components in the end of its version of Demo-1, called Orbital Flight Take a look at (OFT), this previous December. Starliner ended up getting stranded in too low an orbit and came all of the vogue down to Earth without rendezvousing with the orbiting lab. 

NASA has no longer yet equipped whether this would possibly well require Boeing to waft one other version of OFT or enable the company to proceed straight away to a crewed test flight.

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Mike Wall is the author of “Out There” (Colossal Central Publishing, 2018; illustrated by Karl Tate), a book regarding the ask alien life. Follow him on Twitter @michaeldwall. Follow us on Twitter @Spacedotcom or Facebook.