The two astronauts who will finish a nine-year launch drought for NASA came at Kennedy Space Center on Wednesday, just 1 week prior to their SpaceX flight.
It will be the first time a private business, instead of a federal government, sends astronauts. 
Elon Musk
NASA test pilots Doug Hurley and Bob Behnken flew into Florida from their home base in Houston aboard among the space agency’s jets.
“It’s an incredible time for NASA and the space program, once again launching US crews from Florida and hopefully in just a week from about right now,” Hurley told reporters moments after arriving.
We believe it like an opportunity but also a duty for the American people, for the SpaceX team, for many of NASA,” Behnken added.
The two are scheduled to blast off next Wednesday afternoon atop a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket, bound for the International Space Station. They’ll soar from the same pad where Atlantis closed out the shuttle program in 2011, the last home launch for NASA astronauts.
Since then, the only way to the space station for astronauts has been on Russian rockets launched from Kazakhstan.
Hurley and Behnken still don’t know how long they’ll spend at the space station: anywhere between one and four months.
Only one American is up there right now astronaut Chris Cassidy and could use a hand. Hurley said he got an email from Cassidy on Tuesday night in which he wrote that he’s looking forward to seeing our ugly mugs on board. Greeting the astronauts at Kennedy’s former shuttle landing strip were the center’s director, former shuttle commander Robert Cabana, and NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine.
“You are a bright light for every one of America at the moment,” Bridenstine told them.
The welcoming committee was reduced drastically in size because of the coronavirus pandemic.
There were no handshakes for the astronauts, who did not wear masks but kept their distance at separate microphones. Cabana and Bridenstine wore masks except while addressing the crowd; so did the approximately 20 journalists standing more than 20 feet (6 meters) away.
“During these difficult times,” Bridenstine said,”that is a moment once we can all look and be moved as to exactly what the future holds”
NASA’s commercial crew program has been decades in the making. Boeing, the competing firm, isn’t anticipated to launch its first astronauts till following calendar year.
As the trailblazers Hurley and Behnken are establishing prelaunch traditions that were new, they shared two at Bridenstine’s petition.
Hurley, a former Marine and fighter pilotfollowed army heritage and place a mission sticker about the SpaceX flight simulator in Houston on Tuesday, after finishing training.
Behnken, an Air Force colonel, followed Russian tradition and planted a shrub. He’d help home out of his spouse, who is also an astronaut, and their son back.
My son would have a tree that he was a part of planting, Behnken explained. It makes it through Houston’s warm summer this season and becomes a tradition for several people.
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