[ad_1]
A crew of four arrived at Kennedy Space Center in Florida on Sunday, November 8, ahead of SpaceX’s second astronaut launch for NASA this week.
NASA astronauts Victor glover, Michael Hopkins and Shannon Walker, along with Japanese astronaut Soichi Noguchi, were all smiles as they stepped off a plane parked on the former space shuttle runway at Kennedy Space Center in Florida.
Their mission, called Crew-1, will see a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket launch a Crew dragon spacecraft on an 8.5 hour trip to the International Space Station. Liftoff is scheduled for Saturday, November 14 at 7:49 p.m. EST (12:49 a.m. GMT on November 15) from Station 39A at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Fla. if time permits.
Live Updates: SpaceX Astronaut Crew-1 launched for NASA
For NASA, the flight marks the much-anticipated start of regular crew rotations to the International Space Station, with private companies transporting the astronauts. On this flight, there will be double the number of crew members at the Demo-2 test flight earlier this year, and the mission will last six months.
“Today we flew here on a plane, but the plan is to go on a rocket,” Glover said, addressing a small crowd of onlookers. Unlike Hopkins, Walker and Noguchi, this will be his first flight.
When asked what he thought of the upcoming launch, Glover said, “It’s hard to put into words, it’s surreal. I’m excited to go into space. We have a spaceship. amazing and will join an amazing team. “
Glover, Hopkins, Walker and Noguchi will join three astronauts already aboard the space station. NASA astronaut Kate Rubins, alongside Russian cosmonauts Sergey Ryzhikov and Sergey Kud-Serchkov launched on a Russian Soyuz spacecraft on October 21. The astronauts of Crew 1 will join them on November 15, if all goes according to plan.
The quartet of astronauts took off from Ellington Field near Johnson Space Center in Houston on Sunday morning and flew to Kennedy on 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 Director Junichi Sakai.
“I can’t tell you how great it is to welcome a crew here to return to space,” said Bob Cabana, director of the Kennedy Space Center, greeting the crew.
This mission will be SpaceX’s second crewed 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 of SpaceX’s Crew Dragon, a commercial spacecraft designed to fly astronauts to and from low earth orbit.
It will also be the first time that an astronaut from 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 his third flight to the ISS. “It’s really nice to be here,” Noguchi said. “It’s been so long, but Crew-1 is in town and we’re the only game in town this week.”
“Prime Crew at KSC is 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 issue that arose during a recent GPS mission. SpaceX determined the anomaly was due to a residual masking varnish designed to protect sensitive engine parts during anti-corrosion treatment.
SpaceX replaced one of the engines on the Crew-1 booster, which is due to undergo a static fire test before launch on Tuesday (November 10). The test was originally scheduled to take place on Monday, November 9, but slipped by 24 hours due to Tropical Storm Eta, which is expected to bring rain to the region this week.
The astronauts named their capsule Dragon “Resistance“in light of all the challenges of 2020.” It has been a tough year for everyone for a lot of different reasons, ”Hopkins said. We felt like if the name of our vehicle could give a little bit of hope, a little bit of inspiration, put a smile on people’s faces, then that’s definitely what we wanted to do. “
This 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 American spacecraft that carried astronauts – the 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.
[ad_2]
Source link