Details of the Crew-6 mission on the liftoff from the ISS
NASA’s next four-person mission to the International Space Station is now set to explode into the sky on Monday.
Crew-6’s launch was originally scheduled from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida for Sunday, but NASA and SpaceX decided to push the liftoff back 24 hours to allow time for additional checks and balances.
The flight is the sixth crew rotation mission with Elon Musk’s space company to the station, and the seventh flight for SpaceX’s Dragon Endeavor with people under NASA’s Commercial Crew Program.
Dragon Endeavor will be launched by its Falcon 9 rocket, a two-stage rocket used to ferry the satellites and spacecraft into orbit.
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Here’s what we know about the planned launch:
Crew members
- Stephen Bowen, NASA Astronaut
- NASA Astronaut Warren “Woody” Hoburg
- United Arab Emirates astronaut Sultan Al Neyadi
- Roscosmos cosmonaut Andrey Fedyaev
Pre-launch schedule, launch time, backup launch time
- February 24: The four crew members participated in a rehearsal of the day of the launch of the countdown.
- February 26: NASA will feature blog coverage of launch day activities and a live launch broadcast on NASA TV or the agency’s website at 9 p.m. ET.
- February 27: Crew-6 is scheduled to take off at 1:45 a.m. ET.
- February 28: A backup launch is scheduled for 1:22 a.m. ET.
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According to NASA, members of Crew-6 plan to gather new information in experiments that will bring us closer to our goal of landing on Mars, testing the effect of microgravity on flames and immunity, as well as collect microorganisms outside the Space Station.
They are among more than 200 science experiments and technology demonstrations that NASA says will take place during their mission.
Crew-6 will spend up to six months on the space station before returning to Earth.
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During their time aboard the orbiting lab, Crew-6 will see the arrival of cargo spacecraft including the SpaceX Dragon and the Roscosmos Progress. Crew-6 is also expected to accommodate astronauts from the Boeing Crew Flight Test agency and the Axiom Mission-2 crew during their expedition, according to NASA.
At the end of the mission, NASA said, Dragon Endeavor will undock autonomously with all four crew members on board, leave the space station and re-enter Earth’s atmosphere.
After splashdown just off the coast of Florida, a SpaceX recovery ship will pick up the crew, who will be airlifted to shore.
Natalie Neysa Alund covers trending news for USA TODAY. Contact her at nalund@usatoday.com and follow her on Twitter @nataliealund.
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