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From left, NASA’s Shannon Walker, Victor Glover and Michael Hopkins will join JAXA’s Soichi Noguchi on the Crew-1 flight of the SpaceX Crew Dragon.
POT
the SpaceX Crew Dragon made history this year with a manned test flight to and from the International Space Station, the first mission to use a commercially built and operated American spacecraft. Now is the time to keep the Dragon rides running as usual. On Monday, NASA announced a new launch date for the first operational Crew Dragon mission known as Crew-1.
Crew-1 is now scheduled to launch on Saturday, October 31 at 2:40 am ET (11:40 pm PT on October 30) on a Falcon 9 rocket from Florida.
Once this Dragon docks in the @Spacial station, there will be two dragons docked simultaneously. Between the crew and cargo missions, there will be at least one Dragon spaceship attached to the @Spacial station for the whole of 2021
– SpaceX (@SpaceX) September 29, 2020
The operational mission, in other words, not a test mission, was originally scheduled for October 23, which would have brought it closer in time to a Russian Soyuz launch of a new three-person crew to the ISS and the return of the ship. current three-person crew to Earth.
“The new target date will deconfigure the launch and arrival of Crew-1 for upcoming Soyuz launch and landing operations,” NASA said. “This additional time is necessary to ensure the closure of all open work, both on the ground and aboard the station, prior to the arrival of Crew-1.”
There is a second reason for the delay. NASA has been working to isolate a slow air leak, which is not considered a danger to the crew. NASA astronaut Chris Cassidy and Roscosmos cosmonauts Ivan Vagner and Anatoly Ivanishin conducted leak tests that eventually traced it to the ISS’s Zvezda Service Module.
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Crew-1 will have four astronauts on board: Michael Hopkins, Victor Glover and Shannon Walker from NASA, and Soichi Noguchi from the Japanese space agency JAXA. They are ready to go, like Glover tweeted last week.: “Crew-1 completes Dragon Rider training. We have our license to fly! Thanks to all that made this possible. We hope you are proud!”
October is shaping up to be a busy month for ISS launches with a cargo resupply ship, Soyuz capsule, and Dragon all set to roll off this rock.
Future ISS residents of Crew-1 are scheduled for a six-month stay in space. At least they have their Halloween costumes fixed. They go like astronauts.
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