Nicole Victoria Aunapu Mann is an American test pilot and NASA astronaut. She is an F/A-18 Hornet pilot, and a graduate of the US Naval Academy, Stanford University and the US Naval Test Pilot School. She has over 2,500 flight hours in 25 types of aircraft, 200 carrier landings, and has flown 47 combat missions in Iraq and Afghanistan. Mann completed astronaut training in 2015, and was assigned in August 2018 to Boe-CFT, the first test flight of the Boeing CST-100 Starliner. In 2021 she was reassigned to a SpaceX Crew-5 flight aboard Crew Dragon spacecraft due to lengthy delays with Starliner program.
The National Aeronautics and Space Administration is an independent agency of the executive branch of the United States federal government responsible for the civilian space program, as well as aeronautics and aerospace research. NASA have many launch facilities but most are inactive. The most commonly used pad will be LC-39B at Kennedy Space Center in Florida.