NASA declares that SpaceX is ready to fly its first crewed mission

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  Early on Thursday, SpaceX began the process of rolling its Falcon 9 rocket out to the launch pad. [credit: NASA ]

On Thursday and Friday, senior managers from NASA, SpaceX, and the space agency's international partners held long meetings to review all of the aspects of an upcoming flight of the Falcon 9 rocket and Crew Dragon spacecraft.

These discussions must have gone well, because on Friday afternoon, NASA officials emerged with a clear message: "There are no significant issues," said NASA Associate Administrator Steve Jurczyk, who led the meetings behind closed doors at Kennedy Space Center. "In the end, it was a very clean review. We are ready to launch."

The flight of the Crew Dragon spacecraft, carrying Doug Hurley and Bob Behnken to the International Space Station, is set to begin at 4:33pm ET (20:33 UTC) on Wednesday, May 27. It will be the first orbital launch of humans from the United States since July 2011, when the space shuttle made its final flight. NASA paid SpaceX to develop this transportation system and will serve as its primary customer. This commercial arrangement has saved NASA billions of dollars.