OAN Newsroom
UPDATED 6:30 AM PT — Thursday, May 21, 2020
Two veteran NASA astronauts are gearing up for a historic SpaceX test
flight to the International Space Station. Retired Marine Colonel Doug
Hurley and Air Force Colonel Bob Behnken held a video conference
Wednesday to announce they will in embark on the Demo Two mission next
week.The pair will lift-off in a SpaceX crew dragon capsule on top of a Falcon 9 rocket from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida. This mission will mark the first time NASA astronauts will liftoff from American soil in nearly a decade.
Hurley will take charge of the launch and landing, while Behnken oversees “rendezvous and docking on the ISS.”
“It’s exciting on so many levels, I think this this is a little bit more measured in a lot of ways,” stated Colonel Hurley. “Because, one, we’ve been to space before, but we’ve also worked a very, very long time in this collaboration with SpaceX to get to the launch pad.”
The crew is expected to remain in orbit between one and four months.
