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NASA COMMERCIAL CREW ANNOUNCEMENT, Aug 3, 2018, Kennedy Space Center, FL, 11:00 am ET (NASA TV)
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On August 3, 2018 at 11:00 am ET, NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine will announce the astronauts who will fly on the first flights of the two commercial crew vehicles, SpaceX’s Crew Dragon and Boeing’s CST-100 Starliner. The announcement will be made at Johnson Space Center, TX and broadcast on NASA TV and NASA Live. JSC Director Mark Geyer and Kennedy Space Center Director Bob Cabana will also be in attendance.
NASA astronauts Robert Behnken, Eric Boe, Douglas Hurley and Sunita Williams were selected by NASA in 2015 to train and prepare for commercial spaceflights. The announcement will reveal which of them are assigned to the various flights.
Following the announcement, the astronauts will participate in a Reddit Ask Me Anything (AMA) session at 12:30 pm ET.
It had been expected that new launch dates would be announced for the test flights, but that was not explicitly stated in the press release. NASA’s Commercial Crew Program office’s website lists the dates for Boeing’s uncrewed and crewed CST-100 Starliner test flights as August 2018 and November 2018, and SpaceX’s Crew Dragon test flights as August 2018 and December 2018. But they are expected to slip. At a July 25, 2018 hearing, Sen. Bill Nelson (D-FL) said that the first crewed flights will take place in 2019.