A lot is going on at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center (KSC) in Florida, according to new images.
SpaceX preparing for the start of Friday (April 8). Ax-1, the first full -scale spacecraft to the International Space Station (ISS), from KSC’s Launch Pad 39A. The Elon Musk team rolled out the Ax-1 Falcon 9 rocket and Dragon crew capsule at 39A yesterday (April 5).
And the wall on the other side, 39B, hosts the Space Launch System (SLS) rocket and Orion capsule flying at NASA. Artemisa 1 Monthly business a few months from now.
Pictures: The first public tours
Live updates: The Ax-1 private mission to the International Space Station
The two rocks can be seen in NASA images posted to one of his Flickr accounts (opens on new page) today (April 6). The SLS and Falcon 9 are similar in size to some of the new models, but that’s a deceptive performance; SLS towers are 322 feet (98 meters) above the ground, though Falcon 9 Is “only” 230 feet (70 m) high.
Ax-1, designed by the Houston company Axiom Space, will send three salaried customers and Axiom employee Michael López-Alegría to the ISS for an eight-day stay. López-Alegría, a former NASA astronaut, will command the mission.
Ax-1 was scheduled to launch on April 3, but its departure was reversed to host Artemis 1’s “blue dress rehearsal” at Pad 39B. In this challenging endeavor, the members of Artemis 1 practice what they will do in leading a real start -up, including developing SLS.
The wet cloth process began on April 1 and is expected to be cut two days later. The teams ran into some problems, however, canceled the experiment due to the result. Let them gather again sometime after the launch of Ax-1NASA officials said during a phone call with reporters yesterday (April 5).
Mike Wall is the author of “Outside (opens on new page)“(Grand Central Publishing, 2018; edited by Karl Tate), a book about exploring alien life. Follow him on Twitter @michaeldwall (opens on new page). Follow us on Twitter @Spacedotcom (opens on new page) or at Facebook (opens on new page).
