The predominant stage of the SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket that can launch NASA’s SpaceX Crew-1 mission arrived in Florida on Tuesday (July 14). The rocket changed into shipped from the SpaceX facility in McGregor, Texas.
(Image: © SpaceX)
The rocket that can launch SpaceX’s first operational crewed flight for NASA has arrived at its Florida launch field.
The predominant stage of the Falcon 9 rocket for the Crew-1 mission, which is scheduled to launch from NASA’s Kennedy Location Heart (KSC) on Aug. 30, reached the Sunshine Boom on Tuesday (July 14), company officials talked about. The booster made the long creep from SpaceX’s facility in McGregor, Texas, wrapped in a defending dark mask.
The Falcon 9 will now undergo prelaunch processing at SpaceX’s facility at Cape Canaveral Air Pressure Dwelling, NASA officials talked about. Cape Canaveral is subsequent door to KSC.
Connected: SpaceX is already prepping for Crew-1 mission
The Crew-1 launch will send NASA astronauts Victor Glover, Michael Hopkins and Shannon Walker and Japan’s Soichi Noguchi to the Global Location Dwelling (ISS) aboard a SpaceX Crew Dragon pill. The quartet will slay aboard the orbiting lab for approximately six months.
Crew-1 will be the first full-fledged mission of as a minimum six that SpaceX will hover under a $2.6 billion contract the firm signed with NASA in 2014. But it received’t be the first crewed flight for Elon Musk’s firm.
That distinction goes to Demo-2, a test mission that launched NASA astronauts Bob Behnken and Doug Hurley to the ISS in slack Could perhaps just. Demo-2 changed into the first crewed orbital launch from the U.S. since the closing flight of NASA’s assign shuttle program advance help in July 2011. Since then, all astronauts had flown to and from the ISS aboard Russian Soyuz spacecraft.
Behnken and Hurley are scheduled to return to Earth in the next few weeks. If Demo-2 continues to toddle neatly, SpaceX will be definite to launch Crew-1.
Despite the proven truth that NASA no longer too long ago licensed the order of pre-flown SpaceX hardware on crewed ISS missions, the Crew Dragon and Falcon 9 that can hover Crew-1 are both sign-unique.
Boeing moreover signed a contract with NASA’s Commercial Crew Program in 2014, a $4.2 billion deal that the aerospace enormous will fulfill using a pill known as CST-100 Starliner. Starliner isn’t any longer pretty interesting to starting up out up flying astronauts, then over again; the pill have to first ace an uncrewed demonstration flight to the ISS.
This try, which is anticipated to launch later this year, will be Starliner’s 2nd try at an uncrewed ISS mission. Throughout the first try, which launched in December 2019, Starliner suffered a glitch with its onboard timer and bought stuck in an orbit too low to rendezvous with the ISS.
Mike Wall is the author of “Out There” (Sizable Central Publishing, 2018; illustrated by Karl Tate), a e-book in regards to the conception for alien existence. Prepare him on Twitter @michaeldwall. Prepare us on Twitter @Spacedotcom or Facebook.
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