NASA’s SpaceX Crew‑2 Astronauts Headed to International Space Station

NASA’s SpaceX Crew‑2 Astro­nauts Head­ed to Inter­na­tion­al Space Station



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NASA’s SpaceX Crew‑2 astro­nauts are in orbit fol­low­ing their ear­ly morn­ing launch bound for the Inter­na­tion­al Space Sta­tion for the sec­ond com­mer­cial crew rota­tion mis­sion aboard the micro­grav­i­ty lab­o­ra­to­ry. The inter­na­tion­al crew of astro­nauts lift­ed off at 5:49 a.m. EDT Fri­day from Launch Com­plex 39A at NASA’s Kennedy Space Cen­ter in Florida.

The SpaceX Fal­con 9 rock­et pro­pelled the Crew Drag­on space­craft with NASA astro­nauts Shane Kim­brough and Megan McArthur, along with JAXA (Japan Aero­space Explo­ration Agency) astro­naut Aki­hiko Hoshide and ESA (Euro­pean Space Agency) astro­naut Thomas Pes­quet, into orbit to begin a six-month sci­ence mis­sion on the space station.

Dur­ing Crew Dragon’s flight, SpaceX will com­mand the space­craft from its mis­sion con­trol cen­ter in Hawthorne, Cal­i­for­nia, and NASA teams will mon­i­tor space sta­tion oper­a­tions through­out the flight from Mis­sion Con­trol Cen­ter at the agency’s John­son Space Cen­ter in Houston. 

“It has been an incred­i­ble year for NASA and our Com­mer­cial Crew Pro­gram, with three crewed launch­es to the space sta­tion since last May,” said NASA Act­ing Admin­is­tra­tor Steve Jur­czyk. “This is anoth­er impor­tant mile­stone for NASA, SpaceX, and our inter­na­tion­al part­ners at ESA and JAXA, and for the future of sci­en­tif­ic research on board the space sta­tion. It will be an excit­ing moment to see our crews greet one anoth­er on sta­tion for our first crew han­dover under the Com­mer­cial Crew Program.”

The Crew Drag­on space­craft, named Endeav­our, will dock autonomous­ly to the for­ward port of the station’s Har­mo­ny mod­ule about 5:10 a.m. Sat­ur­day, April 24. NASA Tele­vi­sion, the NASA App, and the agency’s web­site are pro­vid­ing ongo­ing live cov­er­age through dock­ing, hatch open­ing, and the cer­e­mo­ny to wel­come the crew aboard the orbital outpost.

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