SpaceX successfully flew a crew of four astronauts on its third official crewed trip for NASA on Wednesday evening after a series of delays. You can see a replay of the action at the bottom of this page.
The NASA mission, dubbed Crew-3, will bring the four astronauts to the International Space Station for a six-month stay. The astronauts departed into space in a SpaceX Crew Dragon spacecraft atop a Falcon 9 rocket at 9:03 p.m. ET.
CAPE CANAVERAL, FLORIDA - APRIL 23: In this handout provided by NASA, Acting NASA Administrator Steve Jurczyk watches the launch of a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from the balcony of Operations Support Building II carrying the company's Crew Dragon spacecraft on NASAs SpaceX Crew-2 mission with NASA astronauts Shane Kimbrough and Megan McArthur, ESA (European Space Agency) astronaut Thomas Pesquet, and Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) astronaut Akihiko Hoshide onboard on April 23, 2021 at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida. NASA's SpaceX Crew-2 mission is the second crew rotation mission of the SpaceX Crew Dragon spacecraft and Falcon 9 rocket to the International Space Station as part of the agency's Commercial Crew Program. Kimbrough, McArthur, Pesquet, and Hoshide launched at 5:49 a.m. EDT from Launch Complex 39A at the Kennedy Space Center to begin a six month mission onboard the orbital outpost.
NASA's Crew-3 Astronauts Hops Into Rocket to International Space Station In A Slow, Methodological Process
During a prelaunch conference (via CNBC), SpaceX Vice President William Gerstenmaier assured reporters that everything seemed to be for the launch.
Crew Dragon's launch preparations are a lengthy and deliberate procedure. Before taking down the hatch door on Crew Dragon, SpaceX technicians took images of the region. They then securely closed the hatch to Crew Dragon, signaling another step closer to liftoff as the rain continued to fall on the launchpad.
SpaceX tweeted less than an hour before liftoff that everything with the Crew Dragon capsule is going well thus far. The rain clouds have mostly dissipated, and the weather conditions are favorable for launch.
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The access bridge for the crew has moved away from the capsule. Elon Musk's aerospace firm also tweeted that the ground workers armed the Crew Dragon's launch escape system, which has a set of eight thrusters that can propel the capsule off the rocket in an emergency.
Bill Nelson, NASA's administrator, also arrived at Kennedy Space Center wearing the flight jacket he wore as a specialist on the Space Shuttle Columbia mission in 1986. He watched his first crewed mission as administrator.
About Crew-3 Mission
The flight is SpaceX's third operational crew launch for NASA. The first is the latest addition to its series of Crew Dragon capsules, which the Crew-3 astronauts have called Endurance. With the Crew-3 mission, SpaceX will have launched a total of 18 people.
Raja Chari, Crew-3 commander, said minutes before the liftoff (per New Tork Times) that people may receive a trick instead of a treat when a person tries to fly on Halloween. Despite this, Chari stated that "getting to fly Endurance on Veterans Day" was a privilege. The journey to the space station will take the astronauts 22 hours.
Due to severe weather conditions in the Atlantic Ocean and a small medical concern with one of the four crew members, NASA and SpaceX have postponed the Crew-3 launch several times since its earlier target date of Oct. 31. NASA declined to provide any details on the medical issue, citing the astronauts' right to privacy but stated that it was not an emergency and had nothing to do with the COVID-19 virus.
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