May 27, 2020 - 16:57 AMT
SpaceX set for historic launch of capsule carrying astronauts to ISS

Entrepreneur Elon Musk’s SpaceX is set to launch two American astronauts to the International Space Station on Wednesday, May 27 from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida, Reuters reports.

SpaceX’s Crew Dragon capsule carrying astronauts Doug Hurley and Bob Behnken and its Falcon 9 rocket is due to lift off at 4:33 p.m. EDT (2033 GMT) on Wednesday (12:33 AM Thursday, in Armenia) from the same launch pad used by NASA’s last space shuttle mission in 2011.

President Donald Trump and Vice President Mike Pence will view the launch in person, a White House spokesman said.

NASA, hoping to stimulate a commercial space marketplace, awarded $3.1 billion to SpaceX and $4.5 billion to Boeing Co to develop dueling space capsules, experimenting with a contract model that allows the space agency to buy astronaut seats from the two companies.