Later this week, NASA and SpaceX will launch the first rocket carrying astronauts from U.S. soil since the end of the space shuttle era. But COVID-19 has forced some changes to their plans.
Two astronauts will launch to the International Space Station aboard a new capsule built by the company SpaceX.Two astronauts will launch to the International Space Station aboard a new capsule built by the company SpaceX.This week, NASA and the commercial company SpaceX are set to launch two astronauts to the International Space Station in a new capsule. This is the first launch by NASA of astronauts from U.S. soil in nearly a decade, but it's happening in the middle of a pandemic.
Even a minor illness on Earth has the potential to cause big problems in space, says Serena Auñón-Chancellor, a NASA astronaut and associate professor of internal medicine at Louisiana State University Health in Baton Rouge."Those common cold symptoms, you don't want to bring to the space station, they're not fun to deal with up there."
The quarantine procedures are actually a little easier to implement in the middle of the pandemic. Astronauts Bob Behnken and Doug Hurley have spent two weeks in quarantine ahead of their launch, according to Rob Mulcahy, a NASA flight surgeon in charge of the pre-launch quarantine program. But this time around, stay-at-home rules have actually allowed the astronauts to spend their first week in their own houses.
in certain areas. And at mission control in Houston, Texas, Mulcahy says they've activated a back-up control room, so that different shifts don't have to operate the same equipment in case of contamination.At 250 miles above the surface of the planet, the space station is the ultimate stay-at-home locale."Once you get to ISS and you don't bring any viruses with you, you're pretty darn safe from that time point," Auñón-Chancellor says.
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