SpaceX already preparing for next crew mission to ISS ahead of May test run

SpaceX is already looking past next month’s planned landmark mission of its Crew Dragon capsule to the International Space Station.

Currently slated for May 27, the mission from Kennedy Space Centre will be the first time astronauts will launch from the United States on any mission since the end of the space shuttle programme in 2011.

Almost nine years since the final flight of Space Shuttle Atlantis on STS-135, SpaceX is ready to launch two astronauts on a test mission of Crew Dragon to certify it as the first of what Nasa hopes to be two commercial vehicles to take over the regular transport of crew to the ISS.

The company founded by Elon Musk, is already prepping for the next ISS mission, though, assuming Nasa signs off on the test mission. Dubbed Crew-1, the mission is set to carry three Nasa astronauts and one JAXA astronaut to the ISS on the first of an initial six missions as part of Nasa’s Commercial Crew Programme.

The program also involves Boeing, which designed the CST-100 Starliner to also take astronauts to the ISS from the US as opposed to the current method of paying Russia to launch them from Kazakhstan aboard Soyuz spacecraft. Starliner, though, has yet to successfully complete its first uncrewed mission to the ISS after a computer malfunction sent the capsule into a suboptimal orbit that did not allow it to dock with the ISS last December. Boeing will have to reattempt the crewed mission before it can move onto the second test flight with humans on board.

SpaceX is already at that step, and will send Nasa astronauts Bob Behnken and Doug Hurley on the Demo-2 mission to the ISS launching atop a Falcon 9 rocket from Kennedy Space Center’s launch complex 39A in an attempt to gain Nasa certification.