NASA/Kennedy Space Center (via Flickr); Boeing; Shayanne Gal/Business Insider
An illustration of a NASA astronaut flying with Boeing's CST-100 Starliner and SpaceX's Crew Dragon space capsules.
NASA on Friday named four crews of astronauts that it says will begin "a new era in American spaceflight" by flying the first commercial spaceships, built by Boeing and SpaceX, in a series of test launches.
"For the first time since 2011, we are on the brink of launching American astronauts from American rockets on American soil," NASA administrator Jim Bridenstine said during a televised briefing on Friday.
Crew Dragon, designed and built by Elon Musk's SpaceX, and the CST-100 Starliner, made by Boeing, are the two spacecraft being developed for NASA as part of its Commercial Crew Program. Each ship requires two crewed test launches before NASA will certify it for routine flight.
The astronauts named today (see the full list below) are tasked with those missions, all four of which are slated to happen sometime in 2019.
NASA started the Commercial Crew Program in 2010, just before it retired the last space shuttle in July 2011. The competition asked private spaceflight companies to develop new astronaut-ready spacecraft - and Boeing and SpaceX emerged as top winners. The agency has doled out more than $8 billion in awards and contracts.
The program's core goals are to get an American-made ships able reach the International Space Station (ISS), plus reduce or eliminate US reliance on Russia's ever-more-expensive Soyuz spaceships to get there.
But the program has met multiple setbacks. Boeing and SpaceX were supposed to have their systems certified by 2017, according to a recent report from the Government Accountability Office. Some delays stemmed from launch vehicles, such as SpaceX's September 2016 launchpad explosion of an uncrewed Falcon 9 rocket. Others came during spaceship development: Boeing, for example, recently discovered a fuel leak in its Starliner system.
If the spacecraft aren't certified and ready by the end of 2019, NASA could temporarily lose access to the ISS. But the agency is confident that the Boeing and SpaceX missions are moving toward completion - a sentiment underscored by today's announcement.
The space agency selected eight of its finest active astronauts, plus one retired astronaut, from a wide array of backgrounds. The group includes former space shuttle flyers, ex-military test pilots, rookies, and - critically - a cadre of four astronauts who've already been testing and providing feedback on the new commercial ships for years.
Here's what we know about the first-ever astronauts to take part in a new space race.
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