CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. — SpaceX’s Crew-6 astronaut mission continues to be wanting good to launch on Monday (Feb. 27).
NASA and SpaceX held a prelaunch teleconference late on Saturday (Feb. 25) to debate the upcoming mission that may see the Crew Dragon Endeavour launch to the Worldwide Area Station (ISS) atop a Falcon 9 rocket. Earlier this week, the rocket and its spacecraft have been rolled out to Launch Pad 39A at NASA’s Kennedy Area Middle (KSC) in Cape Canaveral, Florida. Liftoff is set for Monday at 1:45 a.m. EST (0645 GMT).
NASA’s Dana Weigel, deputy ISS program supervisor, stated the Crew-6 Flight Readiness Evaluation (FRR) put the mission “on monitor” for a launch Monday morning. “The crews are doing nice. Spirits are excessive and they’re they’re able to go,” Weigel stated.
Associated: How to watch SpaceX’s Crew-6 astronaut launch live online
Learn extra: Meet the SpaceX Crew-6 astronauts launching to the International Space Station on Feb. 26
Benji Reed, senior director of SpaceX’s Human Spaceflight Program, added that the rocket and spacecraft are likewise able to fly. “We is not going to fly till we’re prepared. We can’t fly till the {hardware} is prepared,” stated Reed. “We have carried out a number of opinions and we’ll proceed to take a look at the information, the {hardware} and make sure that we’re able to fly these nice people and produce them residence to their households when it is time.”
Brian Cizek, launch climate officer for the U.S. Space Force‘s forty fifth Climate Squadron, stated there is a 95% likelihood of favorable climate for the deliberate launch window. “Only a cumulus cloud possibly drifting on the mistaken time, however not possible,” Cizek added.
Crew-6 will see 4 crewmembers launch to the International Space Station: NASA astronauts Warren “Woody” Hoburg and Stephen Bowen, the United Arab Emirates’ Sultan Al-Neyadi, and Andrey Fedyaev of Russian space company Roscosmos. Alneyadi will turn out to be the primary astronaut from the UAE to fly a long-duration mission in space.
The crewmembers of SpaceX’s subsequent astronaut flight arrived at KSC earlier this week and held a press convention that underscored the joy over the upcoming mission. “We will not thank everyone sufficient that helped put together us for this mission,” Al-Neyadi stated through the occasion. “I can not ask for extra of a crew. I feel we’re prepared bodily, mentally and technically. And we won’t wait to launch to space and conduct the mission.”
Crew Dragon Endeavour will dock with the ISS early on Feb. 28, some 24 hours after launching. There’s already one other SpaceX Dragon on the ISS, Endurance, which launched to the orbital laboratory on the Crew-5 mission on Oct. 5, 2022.
Endurance is now scheduled to depart the space station no sooner than March 6 after a traditional five-day handover interval, Weigel stated throughout Saturday’s teleconference.
The mission can be SpaceX’s ninth general crewed flight. Crew-6 is the fourth crewed flight to the ISS for Crew Dragon Endeavour. The capsule additionally flew SpaceX’s historic first crewed flight, the Demo-2 mission in 2020; the Crew-2 mission in 2021; and Ax-1 in 2022, the primary non-public crewed mission to the ISS.
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