US astronauts Robert Behnken and Douglas Hurley have been in strict quarantine since May 13 because of the pandemic, but they say their actual isolation began as far back as mid-March.
READY. In this image released by Space X, the Crew Dragon spacecraft and the SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket are pictured at Launch Complex 39A on May 21, 2020, as preparations continue for the Demo-2 mission at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida. Photo by SPACEX/AFP
"At the end we got to a go," NASA administrator Jim Bridenstine told reporters by video of the meticulous Flight Readiness Review, which provided the go-ahead. Behnken and Hurley have been in strict quarantine since May 13 because of the pandemic, but they said their actual isolation began as far back as mid-March.
American astronauts have been flying to the ISS, which currently houses two Russians and one American, on Russian rockets since the US space shuttle program was shelved in 2011 after 3 decades of service. Behnken and Hurley have been training for 5 years on the Crew Dragon capsule, which features touchscreens as opposed to the switches and buttons of the Apollo capsules of the 1960s.
SpaceX and Boeing are being called upon to carry out 6 crewed voyages each to the ISS over the next few years.
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