After a full-day review, NASA and SpaceX have cleared a revamped preliminary Crew Dragon spacecraft and Falcon 9 rocket for commencement Thursday to transport a three-man one-woman crew to the International Space Station.
This will be the third flight orbiting US soil since the shuttle’s retirement in 2011, and the second operational flight of the crew sheet, as NASA moves away from the Russian Soyuz spacecraft’s dependence on astronauts to and from the lowlands. to transport earth.
In anticipation of the solution to one supposedly minor technical problem, the removal of historic road 39A in the Kennedy Space Center will be directed to April 22 06:11 ET, which also happens to be Earth Day, which includes a 23-hour meeting with the space station begins. .
NASA / SpaceX
In Kazakhstan, Russian recovery personnel and NASA support personnel have been deployed for the planned re-entry and landing of a Soyuz spacecraft bringing three crew members from the space station back to Earth.
Soyuz MS-17 / 63S Commander Sergey Ryzhikov, flight engineer Sergey Kud-Sverchkov and NASA astronaut Kate Rubins are scheduled to dock from the laboratory complex on Friday at 21:34 ET and land on the steppes of Kazakhstan at 12: 56 to compile. Saturday (10:56 local time).
The landing will take place just six days after another Soyuz reached the space station with three new crew members: Soyuz MS-18 / 64S Commander Oleg Novitskiy, flight engineer Pyotr Dubrov and NASA astronaut Mark Vande Hei.
The two Soyuz crew rotation flights set the scene for the launch of SpaceX Crew Dragon on Thursday and the return to Earth of another Crew Dragon on April 28, bringing four astronauts home after a 164-day stay in space.
During a formal review for flight readiness at the Kennedy Space Center, senior executives agreed to proceed with the launch of the SpaceX “Crew-2” astronauts next week and the return of the four Crew-1 station planes they are replacing.
NASA / SpaceX
“It was an important milestone today, because that’s when the teams meet … and we have put the stamp of approval that it is safe for our astronauts to get on and off the vehicle, and in the case of Crew -1, come home safely, ”said Norm Knight, deputy director of aviation operations at the Johnson Space Center.
The Crew-2 Falcon 9 rocket, with the same first phase that launched the first operational Crew Dragon mission – Crew-1 – in November, was expected to be towed overnight from SpaceX’s hangar at the base of road 39A.
Crew member 2 Commander Shane Kimbrough, co-pilot Megan McArthur, European space agency astronaut Thomas Pesquet and Japanese pilot Akihiko Hoshide, all space veterans, are expected to fly to the Florida spacecraft on Friday afternoon to begin final preparations for the launch.
SpaceX engineers plan to fire the first phase engines of the Falcon 9 on Saturday morning and conduct a countdown with the astronauts early Sunday. The test fire and dress rehearsal were both set up to mimic the actual launch procedures and timing.
NASA
Only one issue remains after a busy weekend.
Bill Gerstenmaier, NASA’s former director of aerospace operations and now a vice president of SpaceX, said engineers recently discovered that slightly more liquid oxygen driver is regularly pumped into Falcon 9 tanks before launch than they realized.
The difference is only a few extra inches in the load of oxygen with the cooled oxygen, but engineers want to make sure they see the difference and what impact it can have on performance or safety.
Assuming it launches on time on Thursday, the Crew-2 astronauts will arrive next Friday morning, April 23, at the station’s front port.
They will be welcomed on board by Space Station Commander Shannon Walker, and fellow crew members 1 astronauts Michael Hopkins, Victor Glover and Japanese astronaut Soichi Noguchi, along with Novitskiy, Dubrov and Vande Hei.
After a week-long ‘handover’ to ascertain their replacements with station operations, the Crew-1 astronauts depart on April 28 around 12:40 ET with their SpaceX capsule in the Gulf of Mexico south of Tallahassee, Florida. .
Before leaving, Walker will hand over command of the station to Hoshide, who will be in charge during the year. Tokyo Summer Olympics.