American SpaceX shuttle ready to fly astronauts to the ISS for the first time

The United States space agency NASA has announced that two astronauts will take off next week on board a private SpaceX vessel, the first crewed space flight to leave from US soil in nine years.

The Falcon Heavy rocket of the Space X company, lifts off on 11 April 2019, en Cap Canaveral, in Florida © SPACEX/AFP

Space X founder Elon Musk has been meeting with top officials at the US space agency since Thursday ahead of the 27 May mission which comes after years of preparation and planning.

The space vehicule known as Crew Dragon, will be launched by a Falcon 9 rocket carrying US astronauts Robert Behnken and Douglas Hurley to the International Space Station where an American and two Russians are already based.

US President Donald Trump will be among the spectators at Kennedy Space Center in Florida to witness the launch at 4:33 pm local time (2033 GMT) on Wednesday, while ordinary citizens can follow on livestream.

✔️ Rehearsal complete!

With our #LaunchAmerica mission four days away, @Astro_Doug & @AstroBehnken started their day in crew quarters and made the trek to @NASAKennedy’s historic launch pad 39A where they’ll return human spaceflight to U.S. soil: https://t.co/ZABu8RDjhQ pic.twitter.com/q3wFQwzouH

— NASA (@NASA) May 23, 2020

There is however a chance that weather conditions may delay the launch until the next opportunity on 30 May.

"All the systems have been checked and checked again," said Jim Bridenstine, head of Nasa at a virtual press conference on Friday.

Question of pride for the USA

It's the first time American astronauts have taken off from the United States since the national space shuttle service stopped in 2011.

Since then, Nasa has been paying Russia millions of dollars to launch its astronauts on the Soyuz space shuttle, from Kazakhstan.

In 2014, SpaceX and aerospace giant Boeing both won Nasa contracts for crew transport services worth billions of dollars.

Founded in 2002, SpaceX has been regularly providing cargo services on its Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy rockets since 2012, but this is the first time it will carry passengers.

Ripley the test dummy

In March 2019, SpaceX successfully tested the Crew Dragon, manned by a dummy called Ripley. A technical set back in June meant the manned craft flight had to be postponed several months.

The Crew Dragon is designed to carry a maximum of seven passengers, but Nasa flights will carry four, with the rest of the space taken up by supplies. It is equipped with touch screens instead of buttons and is designed to dock automatically when it reaches the ISS.

Robert Behnken and Douglas Hurley are both experienced pilots who have spent 29 days and 28 days respectively in space.

They will conduct a series of tests on the Crew Dragon vehicule during their time in space, and if successful, the Dragon will go on to complete a series of crew transport missions.

Colony on Mars?

SpaceX also prides itself on being the first private company to routinely return rocket stages to Earth under propulsive power so they could be re-used rather than being discarded.

Musk's space launches to date have drawn much hype and publicity, in particular, the launch of his red electric Tesla sportscar in 2018.

SpaceX is also developing a bigger spacecraft to carry humans - called Starship - which could begin the process of settling Mars.