NASA: SpaceX astronauts enter pre-launch quarantine

By Beyza Binnur Donmez

ANKARA (AA) - NASA has said that two SpaceX astronauts have entered quarantine to get prepared for a historic launch to orbit.

"Astronauts Robert 'Bob' Behnken and Douglas 'Doug' Hurley entered a pre-flight quarantine today as they get ready to launch the International Space Station aboard SpaceX's Crew Dragon vehicle as part of SpaceX's Demo-2 mission," it said in a statement on Wednesday.

The, mission scheduled to launch on May 27 from NASA's Kennedy Space Center (KSC) in Florida, will be the first crewed mission for the vehicle, as well as the first crewed mission to orbit since NASA's Space Shuttle program ended in 2011.

The pre-launch quarantine process is officially known as "flight crew health stabilization," to ensure the astronauts remain healthy and do not carry any contagious illnesses to the space station.

NASA clarified that although people globally were under various forms of quarantine to prevent the spread of coronavirus, the astronauts' new constraints are standard.