Rocket and Spacecraft on Launch Pad 39A for NASA’s SpaceX Demo-2 Mission

The crew access arm is swung into position for the Crew Dragon spacecraft and the SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket at Launch Complex 39A as preparations continue for the Demo-2 mission, Thursday, May 21, 2020, at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida.
The crew access arm swings into position for the Crew Dragon spacecraft and the SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket at Launch Complex 39A as preparations continue for the Demo-2 mission, Thursday, May 21, 2020, at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida. Photo credit: NASA/Bill Ingalls
A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket with the company's Crew Dragon spacecraft onboard is seen as it is raised into a vertical position on the launch pad at Launch Complex 39A.
A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket with the company’s Crew Dragon spacecraft onboard is raised into a vertical position on the launch pad at Launch Complex 39A. Photo credit: NASA/Bill Ingalls

The SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket set to launch NASA astronauts Robert Behnken and Douglas Hurley on the agency’s upcoming SpaceX Demo-2 mission to the International Space Station is in position for liftoff at Kennedy Space Center’s Launch Complex 39A.

SpaceX’s transporter-erector vehicle carried the rocket, topped by the Crew Dragon spacecraft, from a nearby SpaceX processing hangar to the launch pad, arriving early Thursday morning. The rocket was then raised to vertical.

Liftoff is slated for May 27 at 4:33 p.m. EDT.

Demo-2 will serve as an end-to-end test of SpaceX’s crew transportation system, paving the way for NASA to certify the system for regular, crewed flights to the orbiting laboratory as a part of NASA’s Commercial Crew Program. NASA’s SpaceX Demo-2 mission will be the first crewed flight to launch from U.S. soil since the conclusion of the Space Shuttle Program in 2011.