NASA and SpaceX’s Crew-9 mission is ready to go This Saturday from Cape Canaveral, Florida (USA), to the International Space Station (ISS) and bring two Boeing Starliner astronauts back to Earth in February 2025. on an orbital station.
The launch of SpaceX’s Dragon spacecraft is scheduled for 1:17 pm local time (17:17 GMT) from Complex 40 of the Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, “the first mission to lift off the platform,” although it may be delayed due to bad weather, NASA said on Friday at a meeting.
Crew-9 was supposed to take off with four crew members, but ended up doing so with only their commanderNASA astronaut Nick Hague, and Russian Roscosmos cosmonaut Aleksandr Gorbunov, mission specialist.
That way, the crew will leave two free seats on Dragon to bring Barry ‘Butch’ Wilmore and Sunita ‘Suni’ Williams, ISS passengers aboard Boeing’s Starliner capsule, on the return journey.
Earlier this month, The Boeing 737 returned without its two crew members due to technical problems which could not be resolved and led NASA to make the decision to keep Wilmore and Williams on the space station until February 2025, when the Dragon is due to return.
Retirement is difficult for astronauts
This “big change” in the stick “can release several seats” was difficult to retrieve the two astronauts who were left behind of the Crew-9 mission, “who left their seats” on behalf of Wilmore and Williams, Ken Bowersox, assistant administrator of NASA’s Space Operations Mission Directorate in Washington, said at the meeting.
It is expected that, if the mission starts this Saturday, which has a 55% chance of happening, Crew-9 will arrive with the ISS next Sunday afternoon.
NASA and SpaceX experts also commented on the important details in case of an emergency landing on the way back to Earth, such as the installation of superDraco thrusters, so that, “if all the parachutes fail”, these Thrusters are already burning. the car meets the water.
The Dragon car was also cleaned and repainted in some places, especially the radiators to “warm the heat in places and have enough power to absorb solar radiation.”
Two members of the Boeing Starliner test flight, both met with NASA astronauts, He only spent eight days on the ISS, but now he will be in the orbiting laboratory for eight months.after leaving Florida on June 5.
The mission of NASA and SpaceX was supposed to take off on Thursday, but it had to be stopped due to the development of the Helene hot spotwhich made landfall last night in northwest Florida as a Category 4 hurricane.
This is the third attempt to launch Crew-9, since the first mission, which was scheduled for August 18, had to be delayed due to the return of problems which was the first mission operated by Starliner. The two crew members of Crew-9, the ninth crew on NASA’s Dragon, have been in the orbiting laboratory for nearly five months conducting research.
Hague and Gorbunov will join the ISS mission, currently commanded by Williams, and will do so. Ongoing research includes research on blood clotting, the effects of humidity on plants grown in space such as lettuce, and changes in astronaut vision.. Research on changes in the vision of astronauts is very important, so they will try to find out if vitamin B can prevent or reduce the problem of the eyes, said the manager of the coordination of projects at NASA, Dina Contella.
