Nearly nine years after the final NASA space shuttle mission lifted off, two astronauts will put everything on the line to make history today.
Strapped into a bus-sized capsule, Bob Behnken and Doug Hurley will be the first humans to ride onboard a commercial shuttle service engineered by Elon Musk’s SpaceX company.
The SpaceX Demo-2 mission to the International Space Station is due to lift off from the Kennedy Space Centre in Florida at 6: 33am (AEST).
It will be the first time a NASA mission has launched from US soil since the space shuttle program wound down.
And, if successful, the test flight will herald in a new era for NASA and open up commercial space travel.
“This is taking the next leap forward in returning humans to space with a commercial company undertaking that role,” said Anthony Murfett, deputy head of the Australian Space Agency.
“We will see the world looking at this launch and being inspired by what is possible.”
SpaceX is one of two companies commissioned by NASA in 2014 to develop commercial space taxis to ferry astronauts and equipment to the ISS.
Since the space shuttle program ended in 2011, the international space community has been totally reliant on the Russian Soyuz fleet.
“[Soyuz] has been a very good, safe and reliable service, but it doesn’t support the [US] national interest to [rely on it],” said Andy Thomas, an Australian-born astronaut and veteran of four space shuttle missions.
Developed in 1967, Soyuz has got the job done, but it’s a hot and bumpy ride for the three astronauts crammed into its van-sized capsule.
Astronauts who’ve been aboa