In 2011, the last time a US shuttle flew to the International Space Station was the "Atlantis". Since then, the United States has relied on Russia to transport astronauts. But that should change at the end of May - with a big premiere.
Washington (dpa) - At the end of May, the US space agency Nasa wants to send astronauts from the United States to the International Space Station for the first time in almost a decade.
Nasa astronauts Robert Behnken and Douglas Hurley are due to launch a "Falcon 9" rocket from Cape Canaveral on May 27, aboard a "CrewDragon" from the private space company SpaceX, said Nasa chief Jim Bridenstine on Friday (local time) via short message service Twitter.
For the first time since 2011, astronauts would start from the USA to the ISS again - and for the first time carried by SpaceX. So far, the company has only transported cargo to the ISS. NASA had retired its own shuttle fleet for cost reasons. The "Atlantis" was flown for the last time in July 2011. Since then, Nasa has had to take its astronauts in Russian Soyuz capsules to get to the ISS - which has long caused resentment in the United States for financial and geopolitical reasons.
The upcoming mission is the "last flight test" by SpaceX, it said from Nasa. How long the astronauts Behnken and Hurley will remain on board the ISS remains to be determined.
However, because of the corona pandemic, there will be restrictions on the number of spectators at the Florida spaceport at launch. NASA restricted its work during the crisis, but the ISS continues to operate. It was only on Friday that three space travelers - the US astronauts Jessica Meir and Andrew Morgan and the Russian Oleg Skripotschka - landed safely in the Soyuz capsule again after months on the space station around 400 kilometers above earth in a Soyuz capsule. On the ISS, three space travelers now hold the position, the US astronaut Christopher Cassidy and the Russians Anatoli Iwanischin and Iwan Wagner.
Already in 2014, NASA had announced that it wanted to go back into manned space flight itself - at that time, the year 2017 had been specified as the objective. In addition to SpaceX, Boeing was also commissioned to develop transporters for astronauts. However, the "Starliner" developed by Boeing did not make it to the ISS on a first attempt in December. The unmanned test is now to be repeated first.