SpaceX's "Demo-2" mission from NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida this weekend will be the first flight with astronauts aboard the Crew Dragon capsule built by entrepreneur Elon Musk's commercial space company.
SpaceX conducted a successful test flight of Crew Dragon to the International Space Station (ISS) in March 2019 with a sensor-laden mannequin on board named Ripley, after the character played by Sigourney Weaver in the "Alien" movies.
Bob Behnken, 49, and Douglas Hurley, 53, former military test pilots who joined NASA in 2000, are to blast off from historic Launch Pad 39A on a two-stage SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket.