NASA and SpaceX are returning the Crew-4 mission one day due to a fixed launch event, officials announced today (March 31).
The upcoming SpaceX Crew-4 spacecraft will fly a team of three NASA astronauts and one European Space Agency (ESA) astronaut to the International Space Station, where they will sit and orbit around Earth. . However, as Steve Stich, director of NASA’s Commercial Crew Program at the Johnson Space Center (JSC) office in Texas, said during a news conference today, the launch has been postponed. For Crew-4 from April 19 to April 20.
This will provide more time between this mission and Axiom Space’s Ax-1 mission, which will introduce a private astronaut army to the field aboard a SpaceX Dragon capsule on April 6, Stich said.
“Because of the complexity of the Axiom mission and where we will be with the preparation of Crew-4,” Stich said during the news conference, “we will be arranging a start date for Crew-4. ”
“We’re in a very big hole,” added Dana Weigel, vice president for NASA’s International Space Station program at JSC, during the same conference.
Stich added that on April 20, they expect Crew-4 to launch at 6:37 am ET (1037 GMT), with a possible launch at around 6 am ET (1000 GMT) on the day. 21 April. Complex 39A at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida.
Select: The release of NASA’s SpaceX team will include rookie astronaut Jessica Watkins
Crew-4 will fly NASA planes Kjell Lindgren (mission leader), Bob Hines (pilot) and Jessica Watkins (mission planner) and ESA pilot Samantha Cristoforetti (mission planner). ).
This was the second flight for Cristoforetti and Lindgren and the first for Watkins and Hines. The crew will board a new Dragon, the fourth SpaceX Crew Dragon, named by the Freedom team. Lindgren also noticed that during a news conference with the missionary team that took place later today, the missionary piece, featuring a dragonfly, had been planned by her daughter.
With this missionary, Watkins would become the first Black woman to lead a long -haul plane.
“This is important, I think for our team and for the country,” Watkins said during a news conference. “I think it’s just a compliment to the legacy of the black female astronauts who came before me, and the future.”
This is probably the last new Dragon ever built, as SpaceX plans each Dragon to fly about five times, a total of 20 missions. (SpaceX has some Dragon spacecraft equipped to carry robotic cargo.) The plan is to keep these spacecraft for the duration of the International Space Station, which is expected to retire in 2030, Jessica Jensen said. , vice president of customer operations and integration at SpaceX, said during today’s news conference.
“Right now, we’re planning to test our number one to make sure we continue to provide the yokes and freight services that the center needs. That’s our priority,” he said. and Jensen at Space.com. However, he added that as time passed and after the airport closed, they would continue to evaluate free -flying missions, asking, “Is there a Dragon missionary? That? Or a Starship mission? “
Starship is the giant spacecraft SpaceX is developing to take people and cargo to the moon, Mars and other distant places.
Crew-4 will be joining a group of astronauts on the field. During the handover, which will take place after their arrival at the airport, there will be 11 members of the ship – six Americans, three Russians, one German astronaut and one Italian astronaut, he said. Jensen today.
“Sailors are ready to go, they’re ready to welcome new visitors,” Jensen said. After a brief stint on the field, the four Crew -3 astronauts currently in the orbiting lab – NASA’s Kayla Barron, Raja Chari and Thomas Marshburn and ESA’s Matthias Maurer – will return to the home on Earth.
“We are waiting for them to get their information on board.” They will stay with us until the fall. There is a lot of research planned. “He added that the developers are working on everything from economic science to plant science, technology testing and more.
And this work will “add to some of the power we need to go beyond Earth’s low orbit. It also brings a lot of benefits to us here on Earth. I think we’re ready.” the field to host Crew-4, ”Jensen said.
Email Chelsea Gohd at [email protected] or follow her on Twitter @chelsea_gohd. Follow us on Twitter @Spacedotcom and on Facebook.
