KENNEDY SPACE CENTER, Fla. – Similar to the space shuttle program days, NASA astronauts Doug Hurley and Bob Behnken will fly from Houston to NASA’s Kennedy Space Center Wednesday, marking the beginning of an exciting week of launch preparations ahead of the first astronaut spaceflight from Florida in nine years.
Both Hurley and Behnken have spent plenty of time at KSC preparing for the May 27 launch on SpaceX’s Crew Dragon and Falcon 9 but their arrival will set in motion a series of events and fanfare the Space Coast hasn’t seen in years.
It’s reminiscent of the space shuttle program but also very different. The historic launch is coming in the midst of a pandemic which means NASA is limiting the number of news media on site.