‘A high-priority mission for the United States of America’: New era of human spaceflight on hold

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. — A new era of human spaceflight will launch from the Kennedy Space Center this weekend when NASA astronauts Bob Behnken and Doug Hurley liftoff aboard a SpaceX Crew Dragon atop a Falcon 9 on a demonstration mission to the International Space Station.

“We are going to launch American astronauts, on American rockets, from American soil. We’re going to do it in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic. I’m going to tell you, this is a high-priority mission for the United States of America,” said Jim Bridenstine NASA administrator.

The launch on Wednesday was scrubbed about 17 minutes before the planned 4:33 p.m. The next launch window will open at 3:22 p.m. Saturday.

It’s been nearly a decade since the retirement of the shuttle program.

Read: Preparing for liftoff: How to watch NASA, SpaceX launch Wednesday

Since then, the Russian Soyuz vehicle has served as the sole means of transporting astronauts to and from the station.

As of last summer, NASA had spent in excess of $3.9 billion on Soyuz seats to ferry U.S. and partner astronauts.

The agency has invested even more than that in its commercial crew program.

In 2014, it awarded Boeing and SpaceX $6.8 billion for the continued development of U.S. transportation systems.

“This is important for the United States of America. We need to retain access to the ISS. It’s important for the world,” Bridenstine said.

There have been technical challenges for Boeing and SpaceX that have caused delays along the way, including an anomaly that destroyed a Crew Dragon capsule during a static fire test last year.

SpaceX identified and fixed a valve issue and went on to successfully complete an uncrewed in-flight abort test in January.

The upcoming Demo-2 mission is still a flight test to validate the SpaceX crew transportation system from launch to docking to splashdown, and it’s the final major milestone for the system to be certified by NASA for operational crew missions to the ISS.

“There will be a little sense of relief when they’re in orbit. How’s that? I’ll feel more relief when they’re at the station, and I’ll start sleeping when they’re back home,” said Gwynne Shotwell, SpaceX COO.

But with just one NASA astronaut currently aboard the ISS, for Hurley and Behnken, this will be an extended mission that brings the nation close to restoring operational flights.

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