The most anticipated flight of Crew Dragon to the ISS is scheduled for May 27. This event is important not only for SpaceX but also for the world astronautics. It will be the first manned launch from the United States after the Space Shuttle's program closure in 2011. All preparations are almost over. SpaceX tweeted some images of the Falcon 9 rocket and the Crew Dragon ship, intended for the SpX-DM2 mission, in the hangar of the launch complex LC-39A of NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida, from where the launch will take place.

NASA announced the crew of the first manned mission, Crew Dragon, back in 2018. Less than in a week, veteran NASA astronauts Bob Behnken and Doug Hurley will be the part of the first crewed test flight of the spacecraft. This mission is called Demo-2 and is scheduled to lift off on Wednesday (May 27) at 4:33 p.m.

The duration of the mission will depend on many factors, including when the next Crew Dragon ship will be ready.

The Falcon 9 rocket and the Crew Dragon will be delivered to the launchpad for routine static fire tests. After that, Bob Behnken and Doug Hurley will conduct one final run of launch day procedures. First, the mission must pass a flight readiness check under the guidance of Steve Jurczyk, the Associate Administrator of NASA.

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This mission will be broadcast online on NASA’s website and the SpaceX YouTube channel. We suppose that this broadcast will be able to break the record of airing the first launch of the Falcon Heavy, which at that time became the second-largest broadcast in the history of YouTube with a peak number of simultaneous viewers of 2.3 million people.

Crew Dragon was developed as part of the NASA Commercial Crew Program, which will allow astronauts to be sent to the ISS without the use of Russian Soyuz spacecraft, and for much less money. Now NASA pays about $80 million for one seat. It is expected that one place at Crew Dragon will cost $20 million with the possibility of further cheapening due to the reuse of Crew Dragon.

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