NASA and SpaceX on Friday urged spectators to stay home for the first home launch of astronauts in nearly a decade because of the coronavirus pandemic.
Top officials warned the public against traveling to Florida for the May 27 launch of two NASA astronauts aboard a SpaceX rocket to the International Space Station.
It will be the first launch of astronauts from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in nine years — ever since the last space shuttle flight in 2011. It also will be the first attempt by a private company to fly astronauts to orbit.
For space space shuttle launches, hundreds of thousands of spectators would descend on Kennedy Space Center and nearby beaches, said NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine.
NASA turned to private companies in the wake of the space shuttle program to get cargo to the space station. Next up are the crew deliveries. Russian Soyuz capsules, meanwhile, have been the sole means of crew transportation to the orbiting lab.
Boeing also is working to launch astronauts under NASA’s commercial crew program; its first crew flight is still months — if not a year — away.
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