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Enlarge / NASA astronauts Doug Hurley and Bob Behnken (foreground) enactment connected Crew Dragon's touchscreen displays.
NASA
Vice President Kamala Harris connected Tuesday volition bestow the Congressional Space Medal of Honor connected Doug Hurley and Robert Behnken. The erstwhile NASA astronauts launched connected the debut formation of SpaceX's Crew Dragon spacecraft successful May 2020.
Hurley, the spacecraft commander, and Behnken, its pilot, volition person the medal for "bravery" exhibited during the Demo-2 ngo to the International Space Station. Their debut ngo was a implicit success, and since this pioneering flight, NASA has flown 5 operational missions connected committee Crew Dragon, on with 2 backstage spaceflights.
An operational Crew Dragon has provided NASA with its sole means of reaching the abstraction presumption speech from the Russian Soyuz vehicle—saving the abstraction bureau from the embarrassment of having to trust connected Russia for this transport amid escalating tensions surrounding the warfare successful Ukraine.
Outside of abstraction circles, the abstraction medal is not a peculiarly well-known honor, particularly due to the fact that it has not been awarded successful astir 2 decades. However, the medal is prestigious and often lone fixed to astronauts who person died during spaceflight activities.
Over the people of much than 4 decades, the Congressional Space Medal of Honor has lone been awarded to 28 astronauts, ever. Of those, 17 were fixed posthumously to the crews of the Apollo 1, Challenger, and Columbia accidents.
The US Congress authorized the president to grant the medal "to immoderate astronaut who successful the show of his duties has distinguished himself by exceptionally meritorious efforts and contributions to the payment of the Nation and of mankind."
President Carter bestowed the archetypal awards connected Apollo astronauts Neil Armstrong, Frank Borman, Pete Conrad; Gemini's Gus Grissom; and Mercury's Alan Shepard and John Glenn successful 1978. When not awarded posthumously, the grant has gone to pioneers, specified arsenic Shannon Lucid, who conducted a long-duration spaceflight connected the Mir abstraction station, oregon astronauts who person flown archetypal connected caller vehicles, specified arsenic John Young and Robert Crippen connected the abstraction shuttle.
Within the adjacent 2 years, further astronauts volition pioneer caller spacecraft and whitethorn go eligible for the medal.
Later this spring, arsenic soon arsenic April, Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams volition marque the debut crewed motorboat connected Boeing's Starliner spacecraft to the abstraction station. Then, possibly successful precocious 2024 oregon aboriginal 2025, 4 astronauts volition alert connected committee NASA's Orion spacecraft astir the Moon. These 4 unit members for the Artemis II mission, expected to see a Canadian astronaut, are apt to beryllium named sometime this spring.
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