NASA, SpaceX Crew-1 Launch: What You Need to Know About Historic Missions

Despite the a Worldwide epidemic, A record Storm weather And with the launch of the problematic rocket engines, NASA and SpaceX are set to launch the historic Crew-1 mission from Florida on Saturday. Four astronauts fly to the International Space Station in a crew dragon capsule on top of a Falcon 9 rocket Demo-2 mission success And Its historical springs And some major spaceflight will set milestones.

Here are the answers to your most frequently asked questions about the mission.

Wait, what was that about the engines?

The launch date for Crew-1 was pushed back to late October when NASA and SpaceX noticed some unexpected behavior from some Falcon 9 engines used for an unrelated mission. Launch a military GPS satellite. That mission had only two seconds left on the countdown and Ann The investigation came to light later Millions of stray cats had closed a small relief valve line. The obstruction caused the rocket’s two engines to try and start a fire early, possibly damaging the engines not being removed from the lift off automatically.

SpaceX found that this was the “trend” of the engines in the rocket used for the Crew-1. The launch date was changed to November, the engines were shut down and now both NASA and SpaceX are satisfied that the time has come.

Okay, so why is Karu-1 a big deal?

Part of the crew-1 climb NASA’s commercial do program The work has been that year. For decades, NASA has developed its own rockets and spacecraft exclusively with the help of contractors, but the Commercial Staff Program works to charter a flight. Companies like SpaceX and Boeing have vehicles that can be used by other customers, and NASA can stop riding on them.

This is a major step towards bringing the light of space back to US soil. Since the end of the space shuttle program in 2011 The Demo-2 mission that sent two NASA astronauts to the ISS aboard a crew dragon earlier this year, NASA has relied on Russia’s Soyuz spacecraft to orbit its astronauts.

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Demo-2 was considered a success of the Crew Dragon, and NASA sees Crew-1 as the first official crew mission off the coast of the United States since the shuttle’s retirement.

“It’s very interesting, especially since Crew-1 is the first time we’ve ever made four people on a space capsule, like humans are great.” NASA’s Anthony explained the year, Lead Flight Director for Missions. “It’s also the longest mission ever of a scary American capsule.”

Who is flying in the dragon?

In addition to the historic flight, NASA’s crew will be the Dragon Commander Michael Hopkins, Pilot Victor Glover, And mission experts Shannon Walker, Joined by Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) Mission Specialist Sochi Noguchi To the space station.

Until now, three people in the Soyuz capsule had a small amount of rides, but the crew dragons could accommodate up to seven (in comparison, the space shuttle flew up to eight spacecraft), allowing these four astronauts to travel. Appeared relatively large.

How long is the trip?

Crew-1 members are embarking on a six-month science mission, which is of interest to those involved in the rabies and space sciences as four traveling crew members are available at the station for more hands-on experiments in microgravity. Are. .

“It’s exciting to be able to see how much work we can do while we’re there,” Hopkins said Monday.

But first, of course, the astronauts have to get there. The actual ISS journey takes about eight to eight hours to dock from the station starting Saturday evening to Sunday morning.

How do i look

Right here. NASA and SpaceX will stream the launch, which is set for now 4:49 p.m. (7:49 p.m. ET) Saturday, November 14 at the Kennedy Space Center from Launch Complex 39A.

NASA TV will broadcast the launch and docking on Sunday, and you can watch it all at the link below.