SpaceX’s crew prepares for the Dragon “Resilience” spacecraft and the Falcon 9 rocket – 215 feet long – for Roll to Pad 39A in preparation for launch on Saturday night at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center on the International Space Station.
These photos were taken inside a SpaceX hangar on the south perimeter of the Pad 39A. A transporter-erector will take the rocket to the historic coastal launch pad, the same place where the Apollo 11 lunar mission was launched in 1969.
The crew Dragon Capsule, named Resilience, will take off from the International Space Station on SpaceX’s first operational crew rotation flight. Named Crew-1, the mission will take astronauts Mike Hopkins, Victor Glover, Shannon Waker and Sochi Noguchi to the orbit for a half-year mission.
Last Thursday, November 5, the capsule arrived at a hangar built on the south perimeter of Pad 39A, to integrate with its Falcon 9 launching vehicle. This photo shows the Crew Dragon spacecraft – 26.7 feet (8.1 m) tall and about 13 feet (4 m) in diameter, inside a hanger mounted on SpaceX’s Strobec transporter for rollout in the launch pad.
The reflective physically mounted solar array of the capsule can be easily identified in the images, with its stabilization fins, which will help the aerodynamics of the spacecraft, it will have to do a launch assort drill.
NASA’s “worm” logo on the stage above the Falcon 9. Worm Insinia was drawn in the first phase of the Falcon 9 rocket for Crew Dragon’s Demo-2 test flight earlier this year.
The Pad 39 features three other Falcon 9 first stage boosters inside the hangar, all showing traces of previous trips into space.
Fully assembled with a crew dragon capsule the Falcon 9 has a 215 feet (65 m) long top up to the rocket tail. Launched at 7:49 pm on Saturday, EST (2249 GMT) marks the 98th flight of the Falcon 9 rocket since its launch on June 4, 2010.
See our Mission Status Center for continuous live coverage of the Crew-1 mission.
#SpaceX The Falcon 9 rocket is ready! が 僕 た ち の ロ pic.twitter.com/cfS9V7JxYb
– NOGUCHI, Soichi 口 口 聡 – （の ぐ ち）） (Astro_Soichi) November 9, 2020
See you soon NASA_TV For Crew-1 Live! 1315ET, 1215CT, 0215 JST! 時間: 15 2: 15 か ら NASA テ レ ビ で オ ン ン イ 記者 会見 が あ ま！ 見 pic.twitter.com/K8KFEuEh11
– NOGUCHI, Soichi 口 口 聡 – （の ぐ ち）） (Astro_Soichi) November 9, 2020
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