ESA’s Thomas Pesquet, NASA’s Megan McArthur and Shane Kimbrough and JAXA’s Akihiko Hoshide tried out their SpaceX flight suits.
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NASA and SpaceX are preparing for the second operational flight of the Crew Dragon spacecraft. On Friday, four astronauts are scheduled to take a ride in the Dragon, lifted into orbit on the top of the Falcon 9 workhorse. It will be an early morning flight for US observers. Here’s how to watch it live.
The launch was originally scheduled for Thursday, but NASA reduced it by one day due to “unfavorable weather conditions along the flight path.” The US Space Force’s 45th Weather Squad predicts a 90% chance of good takeoff weather for Friday.
There will be some familiar equipment that will help the new crew descend from this stone. “Falcon 9, which will be used to launch this mission, uses the same booster as NASA’s SpaceX Crew-1, marking the first time a proven flight booster will be used for a manned launch,” NASA said in a statement. communiqué.
NASA will broadcast the launch live, which will take place at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida. NASA TV coverage begins at 10:30 pm Thursday / 1:30 AM ET Friday. The actual launch targeted 2:49 am PT / 5:49 am ET on Friday.
The crew will take about a day for the crew to arrive at the station, with the docking scheduled for 2:10 AM PT / 5: 10 AM ET on Saturday.
NASA astronauts Megan McArthur and Shane Kimbrough will be joined by Thomas Pesquet of the European Space Agency and Akihiko Hoshide of the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency. All four were already in space, requesting Join Twitter in March: “I don’t want to introduce myself, but this crew could have the most combined experience in the history of space flight!”
We’ve received new crew portraits, so it’s time to introduce you # Crew2. I don’t want to introduce myself, but this crew could have the most combined experience in the history of space flight! More importantly, they are the best teammates ever 👇 pic.twitter.com/rXMnEhS7Pv
– Thomas Pesquet (@Thom_astro) March 31, 2021
SpaceX and NASA are moving to the normal phase of their partnership for the Commercial Crew Program. Early test flights went well and Crew-1 mission in 2020 a mers lin. Crew-2 marks the second crew rotation flight for Crew Dragon and the first with two international partner astronauts on board.
NASA is waiting for the launch of a Crew-3 mission in the fall, which could take off on October 23. Crew-2 would seek to return to Earth not long after.
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