Astronauts to fly reused SpaceX rocket, capsule for 1st time

This will be SpaceX’s third crew flight for NASA from Florida's Kennedy Space Center in under a year.

For the first time, NASA is putting its trust in a recycled SpaceX rocket and capsule for a crew. Astronaut Megan McArthur takes special pleasure in the reused spacecraft set to soar Thursday morning. In “a fun twist,” she’ll sit in the same seat in the same capsule as her husband, Bob Behnken, did last spring for a test flight to the International Space Station. “It's kind of a fun thing that we can share. I can see him and say, ‘Hey, can you hand over the keys. I'm ready now to go,' “ she said in a recent interview with The Associated Press. She and her three crewmates will spend six months at the space station. This will be SpaceX’s third crew flight for NASA from Florida's Kennedy Space Center in under a year. The commercial flights ended the U.S.'s reliance on Russian rockets launched from Kazakhstan to get astronauts to and from the space station after the shuttles retired.