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 Thursday, four astronauts will 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.
SpaceX posted a video on Twitter with Crew Dragon on Tuesday and said that “the teams are keeping an eye on the launch site and in the short time”.
There will be some familiar equipment that will help the new crew descend from this stone. “The Falcon 9 that 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.
NASA will broadcast the launch live, which will take place at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida. NASA TV coverage begins on Wednesday, April 21, at 23:00, the actual launch being targeted for 3:11 in the morning, Thursday, April 22.
It will take about a day for the crew to arrive at the station with a dock scheduled for 2:30 a.m., Friday, April 23.
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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