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The SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket, with its Crew Dragon spacecraft containing NASA and Japan’s National Space Development Agency astronauts on top, is scheduled to take off from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida on Saturday (local time) bound for the Station. International Space.
It will be the second time Elon Musk’s SpaceX will fly NASA astronauts at the International Space Station. The inaugural and historic flight was on May 30, successfully arriving at the space station the next day.
NASA astronauts Victor Glover, Mike Hopkins and Shannon Walker, along with Japanese astronaut Soichi Noguchi’s National Space Development Agency, will be aboard the spacecraft and headed for a six-month stay at the International Space Station.
“Think about […] how we would pack our food. And so we actually rearranged our food, to make sure it was easy to access and that it also made sense considering there are 4 of us. ” @VicGlover on the advice of @AstroBehnken & @Astro_Doug about the crew dragon. pic.twitter.com/ZXt9blxCQA
– NASA (@NASA) November 9, 2020
“We are ready for this launch, we are ready for our six months of work that awaits us aboard the International Space Station, and we are ready for the return,” said Hopkins, mission commander. “Thanks to all the people at NASA and SpaceX and around the world who have helped us get to this point.”
Hopkins, selected by NASA as an astronaut in 2009, will be on his second mission to the International Space Station. It was launched from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan to the International Space Station in September 2013. During its time aboard the station, it conducted two spacewalks totaling 12 hours and 58 minutes to replace a degraded pump module.
Walker, the only woman in the quartet, was a flight engineer for Expedition 24/25, a long-duration mission aboard the International Space Station that lasted 163 days in 2010. She has been an astronaut since 2004.
Noguchi is also on his second visit to the International Space Station having been aboard the STS-114 mission. He was aboard the space shuttle Discovery in July 2005 which docked at the space station. Noguchi became the first Japanese astronaut to perform extravehicular activities (EVA) on the space station. He amassed 20 hours and 5 minutes of spacewalk in three EVAs.
It will be the first trip to the International Space Station for Glover, who was one of eight members of NASA’s 21st class of astronauts in 2013.
The four astronauts are in quarantine and preparing for their launch.
The SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket is standing upright at the launch site, counting down to take off, which is set for 7:49 pm EST Saturday from Kennedy Space Center’s historic pad 39A. If all goes to plan, the Crew Dragon – which Hopkins and his crewmates have called Resilience – will dock with the International Space Station around 4.04 EST on Sunday.
Falcon 9 and Crew Dragon vertical on Launch Complex 39A pic.twitter.com/hBVUHWv3Ab
– SpaceX (@SpaceX) November 10, 2020
NASA has officially certified the first commercial spacecraft system in history capable of transporting humans to and from the International Space Station as part of the agency’s commercial crew program. NASA completed the signing of the human classification certification plan for SpaceX’s crew transportation system on Tuesday after a thorough review of flight readiness ahead of Saturday’s launch.
“I am extremely proud to say that we are returning regular human spaceflight launches on American soil on an American rocket and spacecraft,” said NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine. “This certification milestone is an incredible achievement from NASA and SpaceX that highlights the progress we can make by working together with the commercial industry.”
The Crew Dragon, including the Falcon 9 rocket and associated ground systems, is the first new crew spacecraft to be certified by NASA for regular flights with astronauts from the space shuttle nearly 40 years ago. Several critical events paved the way for this result, including ground tests, simulations, unmanned flight tests, and NASA’s SpaceX Demo-2 test flight with astronauts Robert Behnken and Douglas Hurley earlier this year.
“Today’s signing is about the people from NASA, SpaceX, and other groups who came together to complete an incredible amount of hard work to get this job done,” said Kathy Lueders, associate administrator for Human Exploration and Operation Mission Directorate. of NASA. “Certification moves us from the design and testing phase to the crew rotation phase of our work, but we will not stop making sure that every flight, including NASA’s Space Crew-1 mission, is approached with the same rigor we have employed. to make it happen. the best system it can be for our astronauts. “
The launch of the Demo-2 mission on May 30, 2020, marked the first time astronauts flew aboard the US rocket and spacecraft from the US to the space station, and an in-depth analysis of test flight data has Behnken and Hurley returned safely on 2 August.
In March 2019, NASA and SpaceX took another major step towards restoring America’s human spaceflight capability when Crew Dragon returned safely to Earth after spending five days docked at the space station for the SpaceX Demo mission. -1 from NASA. The test flight was the first launch, docking and return of the American commercially built and operated spacecraft.
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