CAPA CANAVERAL, Florida – NASA’s next crew of astronauts is ready to land in a SpaceX Dragon capsule and explode into space.
The four astronauts are scheduled to launch on International Space Station (ISS) in the next manned mission of SpaceX on Thursday (April 22) at 6:11 AM EST (1011 GMT). They practiced the launch day today (April 18) with one last rehearsal.
Spaceflyers – NASA astronauts Shane Kimbrough and Megan McArthur, Frenchman Thomas Pesquet and Japanese Akihiko Hoshide – arrived at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center (KSC) in Florida on Friday (April 16th) and final preparations have already begun before takeoff, which included a quick conversation with reporters broadcast from the astronaut’s crew quarters.
“It’s great to be here at the Kennedy Space Center,” Kimbrough said, the Crew-2 mission commander said during the discussion. “We had some training already this morning, yesterday we had to go out to the pad to see our rocket and spaceship, which is really interesting for us.”
“It’s great to be here,” McArthur added. “We are delighted and ready to launch.”
Live updates: SpaceX’s Crew-2 astronaut mission to NASA
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Crew-2 Mission to See Veteran SpaceX Falcon 9 Missile Launched Redesigned Crew Dragon spacecraft on a 23-hour journey to the space station. The liftoff is set for 6:11 a.m. EDT Thursday (1011 GMT) at historic KSC Pad 39A. If all goes according to plan, Crew Dragon – which was named Endeavor by its previous crew – will dock with the ISS around 5:30 am EDT (0930 GMT) on Friday.
Their orbiting will be the first time the crew will not go into space on a bright new Falcon 9 missile; Their booster, which launched on Friday morning (April 16) on the buffer for a planned static fire test on Saturday (April 17), flew for the first time in November as it delivered the crew of the 1st crew into space.
Crew-2 is the second operational mission, contracted, launched as part of NASA’s Commercial Crew Program. Kimbrough, McArthur, Pesquet and Hoshide will remain aboard the space station for a six-month mission.
“I just want to take a moment to thank the people who bring us here, who are preparing us, and who are preparing all this for this to happen,” said 2nd crew pilot Megan McArthur. “It’s a huge number of people, including our families, of course, who sacrifice themselves along the way as we prepare.”
“And I just want to take every opportunity to thank you, because we know how much is needed and we really appreciate it,” she added.
Astronaut flower
McArthur has been buzzing lately for her brilliant taste in shoes. When he arrived at the Kennedy Space Center, he was wearing his typical astronaut blues, along with a pair of silver glitter boots. When asked if she could comment on them, McArthur said, “I don’t know if I can explain them, but I can show them again.”
“They’re pretty wonderful,” Pesquet, her crewmate, said Friday after the crew arrived. “There was talk that we were all wearing them, but for some reason it was outdated.”
McArthur said the boots bring him joy.
“I think it was a difficult year for everyone and I decided I needed a little extra shine,” she said. “It’s just fun to wear them.”
But this is not the only flair McArthur wears – a special patch that only a few astronauts adorn with their jackets. McArthur said he won it during a shuttle flight to repair the Hubble Space Telescope.
“Hubble is in a different orbit from the space station, so to get there, you have to travel faster to the main engine stopped (MECO) than you would in a typical mission,” McArthur explained. “So our commander made these patches made for us when we came home.”
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An Earth Day launch
Crew-2 is set to be released on April 22, which happens to be Earth Day.
“It simply came to our notice then [to launch on Earth day] because we all individually care about Earth, but also because our agencies are at the forefront of the fight to protect the environment, “Pesquet said when asked how he felt about leaving the planet on Earth Day.
“Just by going into space, we were able to take a step back and really measure all the variables that allow scientists to determine what is happening to the planet,” he said.
Pesquet says that as astronauts, they are all part of the global effort to understand climate change and how humanity is affecting the planet. That, thanks to space research, NASA and its partners are able to better assess the health of the planet and try to make it better, as the slogan says, “from Earth, for Earth.”
This is a phrase that McArthur says he thinks about every time he leaves the planet. “When we go into space, we do a truly incredible job for everyone on Earth,” she said. “So it’s really special and humiliating to be part of something that will help people and all of humanity.”
“I think it’s a wonderful symbol that we’re launching on Earth Day,” Pesquet added.
In photos: SpaceX’s historic Demo-2 flight with astronauts
Dragon training
This is the third manned global flight of a Dragon SpaceX spacecraft, and as such, the current crew has learned a thing or two from its previous leaflets. McArthur’s husband and fellow astronaut Bob Behnken were one of the first two astronauts to fly the Dragon and spend several years helping SpaceX develop the vehicle before it left the ground.
She explained that her husband, Bob, flew the Crew Dragon last year as part of the demonstration mission and happened to be at the same place she would be. When asked about any advice she offered, she said she “shared tips along the way, [about the vehicle], but no specific advice. ”
“However, I learned from him a few years along the way as they developed the vehicle,” she said. “And then, as I went through the training, I really had a framework to put some of that information.”
Earlier crews mentioned how the Dragon and Falcon sound as they ascend into orbit, and this is one of the things Kimbrough and Hoshide look forward to during launch.
“For me and Shane, it will be the third spacecraft to leave Earth,” Hoshide said. “We look forward to the noise and the G forces pushing us to our chests.”
“It will be a lot of fun,” he added.
“It’s very comforting to know what sounds to expect when you’re going through a very dynamic phase,” Kimbrough said.
He explained that, after each mission, NASA and SpaceX teams are able to streamline the training process more and more thanks to the lessons learned and the feedback of the astronauts. “We are truly the first crew to have a modeled training flow, even if two others went before us,” he said. “So we had a little less than a year of training, while the crews in front of us had a few years of training.”
“I think it’s in a good place now and we will continue to improve as we continue our future missions.”
Launch traditions
McArthur and the crew explained that they will continue the tradition of choosing a special zero-g indicator that will be used to signal when the crew officially arrived in space during its orbit.
On SpaceX’s unmanned Demo-1 flight to the space station, launched in March 2019, SpaceX put a plush ground toy in the Dragon cabin, so that mission controllers can tell when the ship has arrived in space. (Plush earth began to float around the cabin when this happened.) At Demo-2, Hurley and Behnken let their young sons choose the indicator.
The boys chose one dinosaur with pink and blue sequins, while the Crew-1 crew chose a plush baby. When asked what the indicator would be this time and if McArthur’s son would have a hand in choosing a second toy, McArthur said that “our crew will have a zero-G indicator we chose together.” .
“We all have sons and daughters who belong to this mission,” she said, “so our families have chosen an indicator that you will see once we reach zero-G.”
Unlike Russian crews that have their own pre-launch traditions, which do not really include rocket viewing, Crew-2 astronauts have managed to continue the SpaceX tradition of taking crews to see their rocket before launch day.
“We got on the plane here and got to fly near the buffer and see the rocket getting ready to go,” McArthur said. “There’s nothing like looking out the window and seeing a spaceship getting ready and realizing you’ll be riding it in a few days.”
“It’s a wonderful feeling,” she said.
After a quick discussion with the media after getting off the plane, the quartet of astronauts was treated with a close and personal vision of their rocket.
“When we got to the rocket, we giggled,” Kimbrough told Space.com. “I don’t think we’ve all come to believe it’s our rocket.”
He said that when they reached the platform, the rocket was not fully vertical and that they could watch the rocket become vertical on the launch pad. “It was great to see him walk about halfway to the upright position and then see the crew’s swing arm swing,” Kimbrough said. “It was pretty special.”
“It looks fabulous,” Hoshide said. “We look forward to actually riding and flying on it.”
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