Sen-NASA has selected four veteran astronauts to train for test flights aboard commercial space taxis under development by SpaceX and Boeing.
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“These distinguished, veteran astronauts are blazing a new trail, a trail that will one day land them in the history books and Americans on the surface of Mars”, Bolden said on his blog.
In another milestone on that journey, Nasa has now announced the first four astronauts who will take part in commercial space flights, presuming no long-term delays to the programme.
On Thursday, NASA revealed the profiles of the four astronauts who were picked to fly its first commercial space flights. The crews will be launching the test flights in Boeing’s CST-100 and SpaceX’s Dragon space vehicles. During his NASA career, Cassidy has spent 182 days in space and conducted six spacewalks. Each attended test pilot school; Williams specializes in helicopters. The companies each proposed the composition based on their unique approaches to meet NASA’s requirements. NASA is extensively involved with the companies and reviews their training plans. He was a member of the final Space Shuttle Discovery mission. Hundreds of companies are working to make the commercial crew initiative succeed. “We look forward to working with such a highly-skilled and experienced group of Nasa astronauts as we carve a path forward to launch in 2017”.
The commercial crew program seeks to provide an alternative way to get astronauts to the worldwide Space Station (ISS) without relying on Russian rockets, as is now done. He is a veteran of the skies with more than 5,000 flight hours logged across more than 45 aircraft.
In this October 22, 2007 photo provided by NASA, astronaut Robert Behnken poses for a photo.
Behnken is an Air Force colonel who was with the Endeavour missions in 2008 and 2010 as a specialist.
Behnken graduated from Pattonville High (1988) and Washington University (1992), where he was named outstanding mechanical engineering student during his senior year. Behnken has served as chief of the Astronaut Office since 2012.
Eric Boe is a colonel in the Air Force who flew 55 missions monitoring the airspace over southern Iraq after the Persian Gulf War as part of Operation Southern Watch. Both companies are required to complete one successful flight test with a Nasa astronaut aboard to verify the ship can launch, dock with ISS and land safely.
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Boe was apart of STS-126 and STS-133. He went on to earn master’s and doctorate degrees from the California Institute of Technology.
