Astronauts Prepare for May Launch Amid Coronavirus Outbreak Written 19 March 2020
NASA astronauts Doug Hurley and Bob Behnken prepare for their upcoming mission in SpaceX’s Crew Dragon | NASA
CBS News reports that while NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine has told employees that are not mission-essential to work from home starting Wednesday, “Astronauts Doug Hurley and Robert Behnken are continuing their training for launch in May aboard a SpaceX Crew Dragon commercial crew ship – the first launch of NASA astronauts on a U.S. spacecraft in nearly a decade.” The astronauts “told CBS News they are taking every precaution possible to protect themselves, their families and support personnel.” Behnken said, “We’re kind of already in a quarantine bubble that includes the two of us and of course, by extension, our immediate families as well.” He continued, “We’ll be leading up to launch kind of with similar precautions. It’s not a lot different than what we would do for a crew that was going to launch on a Soyuz out of Baikonur (Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan), or what we did back when we launched on space shuttles.”
Full Story (CBS News)