Historic manned SpaceX flight to go on despite pandemic

NASA and SpaceX said yesterday they were pressing ahead with plans to launch astronauts to space from US soil for the first time in nearly a decade later on this month, despite the coronavirus pandemic.

Robert Behnken and Douglas Hurley, both veterans of the Space Shuttle programme that was shuttered in 2011, will blast off from the Kennedy Space Centre in Cape Canaveral, Florida, on May 27.