NASA units busy crew schedule for ISS in 2023
Extra people in space! A sequence of three crewed missions to the Worldwide Area Station at the moment are on NASA’s books for 2023. And it contains the primary crewed flight of Boeing’s Starliner. Additionally on the calendar are a pair of personnel transport missions aboard a trusty SpaceX craft.
In truth, the Crew-6 mission assigned to SpaceX for February 2023 will mark the seventh time a Dragon capsule will ship spacefarers to the ISS. Most lately, members of Crew-4 flew the Dragon Freedom again to Earth on October 14, 2022, after 170 days in space. That specific crew of space farers departed the ISS following the arrival of Crew-5 on the Dragon Endurance on October 5.
The replacements for Crew-5 will arrive on the space station in mid-February 2023, round Valentine’s Day, NASA said:
A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket will launch Dragon and NASA astronauts Stephen Bowen and Woody Hoburg, United Arab Emirates astronaut Sultan AlNeyadi, and Roscosmos cosmonaut Andrei Fedyaev to the space station from Launch Advanced 39A at NASA’s Kennedy Area Heart in Florida.
After a fast handover interval to orient the Crew-6 crew, Crew-5 will return to Earth.
SpaceX’s ISS frequent flier
By the best way, the ship scheduled to hold Crew-6 has already been to the ISS thrice, NASA mentioned:
The Crew-6 mission will probably be Dragon Endeavour’s 4th flight to the space station, which beforehand supported the Demo-2, Crew-2, and Axiom Mission 1 (Ax-1) missions, making the spacecraft the fleet chief in variety of flights to and from the station. The Dragon spacecraft presently is present process refurbishment at SpaceX’s Dragonland facility at Cape Canaveral Area Pressure Station in Florida.
Subsequent 12 months may even see a second crewed mission to the ISS for SpaceX and NASA. Crew-7 will comply with on the heels of Crew-6 someday within the autumn of 2023.
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Starliner to hold a crew, lastly
Then, two months after SpaceX delivers the personnel of Crew-6, Boeing will launch the primary crewed flight check of its CST-100 Starliner. NASA moved the experimental launch to April to keep away from a site visitors jam on the station. The Starliner will launch atop a United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket.
The Starliner flew for the first time in May 2022. It was the third time Boeing tried to succeed in the ISS with the craft. A 1st try failed resulting from an engine misfire, whereas the 2nd try was scrubbed when a set of propulsion valves failed.
In typical rocket scientist jargon, the space company mentioned it thinks a crew of NASA and Boeing techs have the bugs labored out:
The joint crew continues to shut out the OFT-2 anomalies and associate intently collectively to determine ahead work and guarantee all necessities for crewed flight are met. NASA and Boeing presently are engaged on quite a lot of verification efforts throughout a number of crucial techniques that will probably be used for Starliner’s crew flight certification.
Starliner crew able to go
Whereas the Starliner can carry as much as seven passengers to orbit, solely two will probably be on the controls when it launches this spring. The pair, together with an understudy, proceed to prep for the mission:
NASA astronauts Barry “Butch” Wilmore and Suni Williams, CFT’s commander and pilot, respectively, and Mike Fincke, backup spacecraft check pilot, together with the Boeing crew, additionally efficiently accomplished the crew validation check throughout which the astronauts suited up and examined out the pressurized crew module to make sure seat match, swimsuit performance, cabin temperature, audio system and day of launch operations.
Wilmore and Williams will spend two weeks on the ISS. A profitable check flight will enable NASA and Boeing to schedule the Starliner-1 mission to hold 4 astronauts and cargo to the ISS.
Backside line: NASA has scheduled three industrial crew flights to the ISS in 2023.
