NASA announces first SpaceX crewed flight for May 27

NASA announced on Friday that a SpaceX rocket will send two American astronauts to the International Space Station on May 27, the first crewed spaceflight from the US in nearly a decade.

"On May 27, @NASA will once again launch American astronauts on American rockets from American soil!" NASA chief Jim Bridenstine said in a tweet. The astronauts will be sent to the ISS on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket.

Astronauts Robert Behnken and Douglas Hurley will be launched to the ISS aboard SpaceX's Crew Dragon spacecraft. They will lift off at 4:32 pm (2032 GMT) from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida, NASA said. Since July 2011, the United States has relied on Russian Soyuz rockets to send US astronauts to the ISS.