⁍ NASA astronauts Doug Hurley and Bob Behnken are due back to planet Earth on August 2.

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⁍ Before they can safely return, the astronauts’ Crew Dragon spaceship must pass a crucial inspection.

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⁍ SpaceX launched Behnken and Hurley with a Falcon 9 rocket on May 30 from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center.

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⁍ Their flight is the aerospace company’s first with humans on board.

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⁍ Crew Dragon’s development, the astronauts’ current experimental mission, called Demo-2, was funded with about $2.7 billion of the $3.14 billion in funding awarded to SpaceX.

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– Two US astronauts are due back on Earth Aug. 2 after a two-month stay at the International Space Station. But before Doug Hurley and Bob Behnken can re-board SpaceX’s Crew Dragon—the company’s first with humans on board—NASA has to make sure the spacecraft is safe to land in the Atlantic Ocean, Business Insider reports. NASA estimates there’s a one-in-276 chance the Demo-2 mission, which included a spacewalk to upgrade the ISS’ power supply system, will be killed by micrometeoroids and orbital debris, including human-made space junk. “I will start sleeping again when they’re back safely on the planet,” Gwynne Shotwell, SpaceX’s president and COO, said during a televised briefing on May 1. To make sure Crew Dragon is safe to land, NASA plans to use a Canadian-built robotic arm and cameras to survey the spacecraft for damage ahead of the Aug. 2 splash down, as well as use a Canadian-built robotic arm attached to the ISS and on-board cameras to survey the spacecraft for damage. “Dragon was designed for the current MMOD environment, so we anticipate the spacecraft would be able to execute the planned deorbit/entry, and it would be very