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NASA astronauts Bob Behnken and Doug Hurley will be the first to fly SpaceX's Crew Dragon spaceship. Here's how they're preparing.

NASA astronauts Bob Behnken and Doug Hurley will be the first to fly SpaceX's Crew Dragon spaceship and probably the first people in history to fly any commercial spaceship.

nasa astronauts doug hurley bob behnken spacex crew dragon spacesuits flight suits helmets commercial crew program ccp 4x3

SpaceX is poised to launch its first astronauts into space this spring: Bob Behnken and Doug Hurley.

Their flight on the company's Crew Dragon spaceship will mark the first time an American spacecraft has carried NASA astronauts since the Space Shuttle program ended in 2011.

Behnken and Hurley's liftoff is expected to launch a new era of US spaceflight, since it will allow NASA to stop relying on Russian launch systems to get astronauts into space. It will probably also make the two astronauts the first to ever fly a commercial spacecraft.

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"Bob and I were lucky enough to be selected together," Hurley told The Atlantic in September. "As we get closer to launch, things in the last year have actually been pretty hectic. We've been spending increasing amounts of time in California, because that's where most of the work is being done for Dragon."

In preparation, they've run through emergency procedures, undergone extensive training the Crew Dragon's mechanisms, worn their new spacesuits, and met with SpaceX CEO Elon Musk.

"People to a degree think it's pretty glamorous to be able to go into space, but it's actually like a messy camping trip," Hurley told Reuters in June.

Here's how the astronauts were selected and how they're preparing to fly Crew Dragon to the space station.

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David J. Phillip/AP

Source: NASA

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Kennedy Space Center/SpaceX via Flickr

NASA via AP

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Scott Audette/Reuters

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NASA Photo / Houston Chronicle, Smiley N. Pool

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Robert Markowitz/NASA/Johnson Space Center

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SEE ALSO: NASA has big plans for the 2020s, from powerful new space telescopes to a hunt for alien life on a moon of Saturn. Here's the timeline.

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