NASA announced on Friday the names of the astronauts that will be engaging in the first space flights from America since the U.S. retired the Space Shuttle in 2011.
The crews would be flying SpaceX and Boeing-developed spacecraft as part of NASA’s Commercial Crew Program.
“This is a big deal, and we want Americans to know that we’re back,” NASA administrator Jim Bridenstine said in a ceremony at the Johnson Space Center, according to the Washington Post. “We are going to launch American astronauts from American soil. That’s a big deal.”
The NASA astronauts who will partake in the space flights are Robert Behnken, Eric Boe, Josh Cassada, Victor Glover, Michael Hopkins, Doug Hurley, Nicole Mann, and Sunita Williams.
The two spacecraft developers were awarded in 2014 a combined $6.8 billion in contracts from NASA to be able to create the spacecraft capable of flying crews to the orbiting laboratory station.
After several setbacks and delays, SpaceX announced that it would be able to fly crews out by April, while Boeing said it would be able to do the same by the middle of 2019.
