Three NASA astronauts and their Russian cosmonaut teammates flew to Kennedy Space Center on Sunday to prepare for launch atop a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket early Friday, kicking off a planned six-month tour of duty aboard the International Space Station.
Crew 8 commander flies from Johnson Space Center in Houston Matthew Dominickco-pilot Michael Barratt, Jeanette Epps and cosmonaut Alexander Grebenkin touched down on the Florida spaceport’s 3-mile-long runway at 1:45 p.m. EST. Barratt had previously worked on two spaceflights, while his three crewmates were rookies.
“Wow, it’s great to be at the Cape!” Dominick said from the podium. “I’m a kid working in a candy store. … It’s an incredible time to be in spaceflight.”
As if to prove the point, SpaceX launched a Falcon 9 rocket carrying 24 Starlink internet satellites from the nearby Cape Canaveral Space Force Station three hours after the station crew arrived in Florida, giving them a spectacular glimpse of events to come.
A few hours later, NASA and SpaceX managers completed the flight readiness review and received the crew’s tentative approval for takeoff.
“It’s hard to believe that it’s been 25 years since we launched the first hardware for the International Space Station and that we’ve had crew there for over 23 years,” said Ken Bowersox, a former shuttle commander and current NASA chief. human spaceflight program. “During this time, safely launching and returning our crew members to the water has been a critical priority.
“Today’s review was very comprehensive. We talked about some technical issues regarding the Falcon 9 rocket and the Dragon spacecraft. We talked about the readiness of the crew and the space station. At the end of the review, everyone chose ‘go’.”
Dominick and company plan to board the SpaceX Crew Dragon (Endeavor) overnight on Monday for the dress rehearsal countdown. A few hours later, SpaceX plans to test fire the Falcon 9’s first stage engines to pave the way for the first flight of the reusable booster.
Assuming the testing goes well and the weather is favourable, the crew will be ready for the actual Thursday night, departing from historic runway 39A at 12:04 a.m. Friday. This is the moment when Earth’s rotation will move the pad into the plane of the space station’s orbit to make a rendezvous possible.
Once in space, Dominick and Barratt will monitor a series of autonomously driven thruster firings, moving from behind and below to catch up with the space station early Saturday. After arriving at a point right in front of the police station, Endeavor will take action to dock at the laboratory’s forward port at 7 am.
To welcome them on board were Soyuz crew members Oleg Kononenko and Nikolai Chub and NASA astronaut Loral O’Hara, who launched to the station last September.
Also on the space station: Crew 7 commander Jasmine MoghbeliEuropean Space Agency astronaut Andreas Mogensen, Japanese pilot Satoshi Furukawa and cosmonaut Konstantin Borisov, Launched from Kennedy Space Center last August 25.
Following a one-week handover period to help Crew 8 pilots become accustomed to the ins and outs of station operations, Moghbeli, Mogensen, Furukawa, and Borisov will leave the ship on March 8 and return to Earth, completing a procession down the coast of Florida. 196 daily missions.
“I really can’t believe this adventure is almost over,” Moghbeli, a veteran maritime helicopter pilot, said on social media. “This is what I’ve dreamed of since I was a little girl. I was afraid to come here and be disappointed after having such high expectations my whole life, but this experience exceeded all my expectations.”
I really can’t believe this adventure is about to end. This is what I’ve dreamed of since I was little. After having such high expectations my whole life, I was afraid to come here and be disappointed, but this experience exceeded all my expectations.… pic.twitter.com/4blpTyeFSu
— Jasmin Moghbeli (@AstroJaws) February 25, 2024
The launch and docking of Crew 8 is the first of a multi-step procedure by NASA and the Russian federal space agency Roscosmos to replace the space station’s seven long-term crew members with new operators. Crew rotations generally occur twice a year.
With Crew 8 aboard the ISS and Crew 7 returning to Earth, Roscosmos will launch veteran cosmonaut Oleg Novitskiy, Belarusian guest pilot Marina Vasilevskaya, and NASA veteran Tracy Dyson on the Soyuz MS-25/71S ferry on March 21. He plans to launch it onto his ship.
The mission is informally known as a “taxi flight” in which a short-term crew delivers a new Soyuz to the station and then flies home in a Soyuz nearing the end of its six-month stay. But this time, a taxi flight is required for Kononenko and Chub to stay in space for a year.
Novitskiy and Vasilevskaya, along with NASA’s O’Hara, will return to Earth on April 2 using the Soyuz MS-24/70S spacecraft that carried Kononenko, Chub and O’Hara to the station last September.
Kononenko and Chub will return to Earth with Dyson aboard the Soyuz MS-25/71S spacecraft delivered by Novitskiy in September.
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