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The crew will consist of American astronauts Michael Hopkins, Victor Glover and Shannon Walker, as well as Japanese astronaut Soichi Noguchi.
The start is scheduled for Sunday at 7:00 p.m. 27 min. (Monday 2:27 am Lithuanian time) from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida.
The mission marks an important milestone for SpaceX as the company’s leading and most trusted transportation service provider to the United States Space Agency as NASA awaits the Starliner capsule under construction by Boeing. Testing of this spacecraft has taken a long time, so it may be ready to go no sooner than early next year.
Since 2012, SpaceX has been flying stocks towards the cargo version of the Dragon TKS capsule.
The SpaceX demonstration in May became the first manned spaceflight from US soil since 2011, when the Americans completed the Space Shuttle reusable spacecraft program. That demonstration mission ended America’s reliance on Russian Soyuz missiles that brought American astronauts to the TKS.
The launch of the spacecraft will be monitored by Vice President Mike Pence and his wife Karen Pence.
The crew will arrive at TKS on Monday at approximately 11pm (Tuesday 6pm Lithuanian time) and, having contributed the two Russians and an American already in orbit, will work there for half a year.
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