NASA and SpaceX has officially marked May 27 to send the astronauts aboard an American rocket to the International Space Station (ISS) in for the first time in nearly a decade.

The space agency announced Friday that astronauts Bob Behnken and Doug Hurley will board the Crew Dragon capsule and lift off from Florida's Kennedy Space Center.

The ISS has been accessible to astronauts only through the purchase of seats on Russian capsules launched from Kazakhstan and this will be the first time NASA has launched its own crew since 2011.

The launch is part of NASA's Commercial Crew Program, which has partnered with the American aerospace industry to bring spaceflight back to US soil.

As with most high-profile missions, the new date could slip, but it seems NASA and SpaceX are determined to carry out the launch. 

'The goal of the program is to provide safe, reliable, and cost-effective transportation to and from the space station, which will allow for additional research time and will increase the opportunity for discovery aboard humanity's testbed for exploration,' explained NASA last month.