SpaceX, NASA 'go' for 1st astronaut launch to ISS from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station pad
- by Space.com
- Sep 27, 2024
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A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket test fires its engines head of the planned Crew-9 astronaut launch for NASA at Space Launch Complex-40 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida. Liftoff is set for Sept. 28, 2024.
(Image credit: SpaceX)
NASA cleared its next astronaut flight to the International Space Station for launch on Friday (Sept. 27), a weekend liftoff that will help return two Boeing Starliner astronauts home and break in a new launch pad for SpaceX.
A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket and Dragon spacecraft will launch two Crew-9 astronauts, NASA veteran Nick Hague and Russian cosmonaut Alexandr Gorbunov, to the ISS from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida on Saturday, Sept. 28. Liftoff is set for 1:17 p.m. EDT (1517 GMT).
"We're proceeding toward launch and go to proceed time of 1:17 p.m. tomorrow," Steve Stich, NASA's Commercial Crew Program manager, told reporters Friday evening in a press briefing. "We are vertical at the pad, and the next big activity will be loading the cargo here this afternoon and then getting ready for flight." You can watch the Crew-9 launch live on Space.com, courtesy of NASA and SpaceX, beginning at 9:10 a.m. EDT (1310 GMT). You can also watch the launch on NASA's YouTube, NASA+ streaming channel and SpaceX's X page.
SpaceX's Crew-9 mission is a break from the company's typical ISS crew rotation flights for NASA in a couple of ways.
First, there's the crew size.
A half-Dragon crew
NASA's SpaceX Crew-9 crew members, NASA astronaut Nick Hague (left) and Roscosmos cosmonaut Aleksandr Gorbunov, in their SpaceX spacesuits.
(Image credit: NASA/Kim Shiflett)
For the first time since a May 2020 test flight, SpaceX is only launching two astronauts to the ISS on a Dragon spacecraft. That's because NASA pulled two other crewmembers -- its original commander Zena Cardman and three-time shuttle flier Stephanie Wilson -- from the flight to make room for two astronauts that have been stuck on the ISS since their Boeing Starliner capsule return to Earth without them on Sept. 7.
NASA astronauts Butch Wilmore and Sunita Williams launched to the station in June on the first-ever crewed test flight of Boeing's Starliner spacecraft. But concerns over Starliner's thruster system prompted NASA to keep Wilmore and Williams on the ISS and return Starliner home uncrewed. Their original eight-day mission turned into a full eight-month spaceflight. This month, Williams even took command of the station's current Expedition 72 crew while she and Wilmore wait for a trip home on Crew-9's Dragon capsule in February 2025.
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