NASA’s SpaceX Crew-1 Astronauts Set To Arrive Sunday

SpaceX’s Crew Dragon spacecraft arrived at Kennedy Space Center’s Launch Complex 39A on Thursday, Nov. 5, after making the trek from its processing facility at nearby Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida.

A few days from now, SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket, topped by Crew Dragon, will be raised to a vertical position at the pad. Crew-1 astronauts Michael Hopkins, Victor Glover, and Shannon Walker of NASA, along with Soichi Noguchi of the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA), will fly from their home base at the agency’s Johnson Space Center in Houston to the Florida spaceport on Sunday, Nov. 8.

The schedule calls for the astronauts to depart from Ellington Field near Johnson and fly to Kennedy aboard a charter plane. They’re expected to arrive at Kennedy’s Launch and Landing Facility on Sunday afternoon. NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine and Deputy Administrator Jim Morhard, Center Director Bob Cabana, and Junichi Sakai, manager of JAXA’s International Space Station Program, will greet the crew, followed by a media event at the runway that will broadcast live on NASA Television and the agency’s website, weather permitting.

For NASA’s SpaceX Crew-1 mission, Hopkins, Glover, Walker, and Noguchi will launch to the International Space Station aboard Crew Dragon, powered by the Falcon 9. Liftoff from Launch Complex 39A is targeted for 7:49 p.m. EST Saturday, Nov. 14.

After launch, the spacecraft, which the Crew-1 astronauts named Resilience, will perform a series of maneuvers, culminating with rendezvous and docking with the space station. Upon their arrival aboard, the Crew-1 astronauts will become members of Expedition 64, joining NASA astronaut Kate Rubins, as well as Expedition 64 commander Sergey Ryzhikov and flight engineer Sergey Kud-Sverchkov, both of the Russian space agency Roscosmos.

The Crew-1 mission is a major step for NASA’s Commercial Crew Program. Operational, long-duration commercial crew rotation missions will enable NASA to continue the important research and technology investigations taking place onboard the station.

FMI: www.spacex.com, www.nasa.gov