CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. – NASA has officially given SpaceX the green light to launch its next crew mission to the International Space Station.
That mission, dubbed Crew-2, will detonate Thursday morning (April 22) at 6:11 a.m. EST (1011 GMT) on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from NASA’s historic Pad 39A and Kennedy Space Center in Florida. It will be the second flight of this specific Crew Dragon. The capsule, dubbed “Endeavor,” first transported NASA astronauts Bob Behnken and Doug Hurley to and from the space station for the Demo-2 test flight last year.
It will also be the second flight for the first stage booster, which previously brought the Crew-1 astronauts to the space station on November 18, 2020. Inside the Dragon are four experienced crew members: NASA astronauts Shane Kimbrough and Megan McArthur, Astronaut Thomas Pesquet from the European Space Agency (ESA) and astronaut Akihiko Hoshide from Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA).
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SpaceX’s Crew Dragon marks the third different spacecraft for both Hoshide and Kimbrough, as the duo followed in the footsteps of JAXA’s Crew-1 astronaut Soichi Noguchi. (Noguchi became the first astronaut to fly three different spacecraft – the space shuttle, the Soyuz, and now the crew dragon – when it was launched in November 2020.)
Last week, NASA and SpaceX met for a flight readiness assessment to view the spacecraft and launch vehicle to ensure that both were certified and ready to fly later this week. The teams went through their checklists, leaving just one minor issue to work through before launch.
One such problem was how much liquid oxygen is loaded into the launch vehicle. Falcon 9 relies on two components to fuel its travels to space: rocket-grade liquid kerosene and liquid oxygen.
According to Bill Gerstenmaier, the current vice president of construction and flight reliability at SpaceX (and former chief of manned space flight at NASA), said at a press conference last Thursday (April 15) that the teams discovered a small discrepancy in the amount of liquid oxygen . loaded in the launcher compared to the amount SpaceX expected.
On Tuesday (April 20), Benji Reed, senior director of manned space flight at SpaceX, said the liquid oxygen problem had been resolved and that Falcon and Dragon passed two major tests this weekend: a static fire test and a dress rehearsal with the crew. . Both exercises were performed flawlessly and the mission was given the green light to proceed with Thursday’s early morning launch.
“It’s a very exciting time and we look forward to a successful mission,” Reed said during a pre-launch press conference on Tuesday (April 20).
Eye on the sky
Forecasters from the 45th Space Wing weather squadron call for an 80% favorable probability of launch in the early morning hours on Thursday. The only cause for concern at the launch site is the takeoff winds. It’s been very rainy here on the space coast in the days leading up to launch, but thankfully a high-pressure system will come in on Wednesday, and that should clear up the storms, weather officer Brian Cisek said at Tuesday’s press conference.
The 45th Space Wing team will monitor a series of 10 weather conditions on the day of launch, plus any additional restrictions set by the specific launch provider. These include electric field rules, thick cloud rules, and the potential for cumulus clouds, just to name a few. But SpaceX also has its own limitations that have to do with the amount of precipitation the rocket can fly through and things like top-level wind.
But that is not everything. SpaceX must also monitor ocean conditions in the landing zone to ensure the booster can land safely on the drone ship. As if that wasn’t complicated enough, as there are astronauts aboard this Dragon, NASA has its own conditions that take into account the weather at various abort points during Dragon’s ascent to Earth orbit.
In Photos: SpaceX’s amazing Crew Dragon in-flight test launch
Crew Dragon is equipped with an escape system to get the spacecraft to safety in the unlikely event that something really goes wrong with the rocket as it climbs to space. All of these factors together form the launch weather conditions for this and other commercial crew missions.
If everything goes according to plan and the weather still looks good, we can look forward to a launch before sunrise on Thursday morning. Cisek says there is a backup option Friday morning and the weather looks equally promising.
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