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A crew of four astronauts arrived at Kennedy Space Center in Florida on Sunday (November 8) ahead of the second SpaceX launch for NASA this week.
NASA astronauts Victor Glover, Michael Hopkins, Shannon Walker, and Japanese astronaut Soichi Noguchi all smiled as they stepped off a plane, which was parked on the former space shuttle runway at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida.
Their mission, called Crew-1, will see the launch of a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket a Crew Dragon spacecraft on an 8.5-hour trip to the International Space Station. Takeoff is scheduled for November 14 at 7:49 PM EST (November 15 0049 GMT) from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center Pad 39A in Cape Canaveral, Florida – Self weather permitting.
Real-time updates: SpaceX Crew-1 astronaut launch for NASA
For NASA, this flight marks the long-awaited start of regular crew rotations at the International Space Station, with private companies ferrying astronauts. On this flight the number of crew members will be double that of the Demo-2 test flight earlier this yearand the mission will last six months.
“We flew here today on a plane, but the plan is to take off with a rocket,” Glover said, addressing a small crowd of spectators. Unlike Hopkins, Walker and Noguchi, this will be his first flight.
When asked how he felt about the upcoming launch, Glover said, “It’s hard to put into words, it’s surreal. I’m just excited to go to space. We have an amazing spaceship and we’re going to join an amazing team.”
Glover, Hopkins, Walker and Noguchi will join three astronauts already aboard the space station. NASA astronaut Kate Rubins, along with Russian cosmonauts Sergey Ryzhikov and Sergey Kud-Serchkov launched on a Russian Soyuz spacecraft on 21 October. Crew 1 astronauts will join them on November 15, if all goes according to plan.
The quartet of astronauts departed Sunday morning from Ellington Field, near the Johnson Space Center in Houston, and flew to Kennedy aboard a charter plane. Upon arrival, they were greeted by NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine, Deputy Administrator Jim Morhard, Center Director Bob Cabana, and JAXA International Space Station Program Manager Junichi Sakai.
“I can’t tell you how great it is to welcome a crew here to go back to space,” said Bob Cabana, director of the Kennedy Space Center, greeting the crew.
This mission will be SpaceX’s second manned flight for NASA (following the successful Demo-2 flight launched in May) and is part of NASA’s commercial crew program. This flight is the first operational mission for SpaceX’s Crew Dragon, a commercial spacecraft designed to fly astronauts to and from low earth orbit.
It will also mark the first time that one of NASA’s international partners will board a SpaceX Crew Dragon. JAXA, the Japanese space agency, is sending one of its veteran astronauts on its third flight to the ISS. “It feels so good to be here,” said Noguchi. “It’s been such a long way, but Crew-1 is in town and we’re the only game in town this week.”
“Prime Crew at KSC, it’s the best part of astronaut life,” he added.
Originally scheduled for October 31, the mission was delayed for two weeks to allow SpaceX to fix an engine problem that occurred during a recent GPS mission. SpaceX determined that the anomaly was caused by a residual masking lacquer designed to protect sensitive parts of the engine during an anti-corrosion treatment.
SpaceX changed one of the engines on the Crew-1 booster, which is scheduled for a pre-launch static fire test on Tuesday (November 10). The test was originally scheduled for Monday (Nov 9), but has been postponed by 24 hours due to tropical storm Eta, which is expected to bring rain to the area this week.
The astronauts named their capsule the dragon “Resilience“in light of all the challenges of 2020.” It’s been a tough year for everyone for many different reasons, “Hopkins said.” We felt like the name of our vehicle could give some hope, some inspiration, put a smile on people’s faces, then this is definitely what we wanted to do. “
That sentiment is also represented in the mission patch. There are no names or flags on the patch. Instead it has symbols on the bottom edge to pay homage to the four previous US spacecraft that carried astronauts: Space Shuttle, Apollo, Gemini and Mercury.
“Our mission is for everyone,” Noguchi said. “All for one, one for all. Let’s go fly.”
Follow Amy Thompson on Twitter @astrogingersnap. Follow us on Twitter @Spacedotcom or Facebook.
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