On Friday, NASA concluded a flight readiness review and cleared SpaceX, after some last-minute turmoil hit the space agency's upper ranks.

The SpaceX launch will take place Wednesday on May 27 at 4:33 p.m.

The Crew Dragon capsule will carry astronauts Bob Behnken and Doug Hurley to the space station, docking 19 hours after launch.

A successful mission would validate NASA's goal of relying on private-sector companies like SpaceX and perhaps Boeing (BA) to provide transport to and from the International Space Station, freeing it to focus on deep-space exploration.

It also would open the door for SpaceX to leap ahead in the growing space tourism sector, which includes Virgin Galactic (SPCE) and Amazon (AMZN) founder Jeff Bezos' Blue Origin. While SpaceX has been putting satellites into orbit and delivering supplies to the space station, it has never taken humans into space.

NASA has said the mission could run anywhere from one month to the end of September, and a decision will come when the astronauts are on orbit. The Crew Dragon is capable of staying on orbit for 210 days.

In 2014, NASA awarded Boeing a $4.2 billion contract and SpaceX a $2.6 billion contract to develop space taxis for missions to the space station and end its reliance on Russia's Soyuz capsules.

If next week's SpaceX launch goes as planned, the first operational Commercial Crew mission will come later this year, taking U.S.

Still, NASA is hedging its bets. Earlier this month, it reportedly paid over $90 million for an extra seat on a Soyuz capsule in mid-October in case there is still a delay with the SpaceX launch.

But NASA isn't SpaceX's only Crew Dragon customer as Axiom Space, which builds habitats and modules for the space station, signed a deal with SpaceX to fly three paying customers to the space station in late 2021.

SpaceX is also working with Space Adventures to fly four space tourists around the Earth's orbit.

But just over a week from the SpaceX launch, NASA shocked the space community when it announced Tuesday that Doug Loverro, associate administrator for human exploration and operations, had resigned effective Monday.

The SpaceX launch marks the company's second test flight for NASA's Commercial Crew program, following an uncrewed demonstration to the space station last year.

But delays have plagued the program for both Boeing and SpaceX as NASA implemented strict protocols for testing and other requirements for human-rated capsules.

On Friday, NASA's Commercial Crew manager, Kathy Lueders, was asked about last year's capsule explosion and her thoughts on the upcoming SpaceX launch. "Don't ever underestimate the value of a failure," she replied.