NASA and SpaceX are moving closer to the launch of Crew 7 to the International Space Station as Crew Dragon has arrived at Launch Complex 39A to be attached to the Falcon 9 second stage.
The launch is currently scheduled only one week from now, on August twenty fifth, and is scheduled for 3:49 a.m. ET (07:49 UTC). The Crew has already begun their quarantine to make sure they don’t get sick or bring any illnesses as much as the Space Station and are scheduled to reach in Florida on August twentieth.
Crew-7’s Dragon arrived at Pad 39A in Florida ahead of its third mission to the @space_station. As teams prepare to launch Crew-7 and safely bring Crew-6 home, the Crew-8 astronauts accomplished their first week of coaching in California pic.twitter.com/BpEc6k6ZSj
— SpaceX (@SpaceX) August 17, 2023
This will probably be the third flight for Crew Dragon Endurance after previously launching the Crew 3 and Crew 5 missions to the International Space Station. Just a few more tasks must be accomplished before launch, similar to attaching the solar panels to the trunk, which provides power to the capsule, it also serves as an additional storage area but will not be normally used during crew missions.
Crew 7 will feature NASA astronaut Jasmin Moghbeli (Mission Commander), European Spacey Agency astronaut Andreas Mogensen (Pilot), Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency astronaut Satoshi Furukawa (Mission Specialist), and Russian cosmonaut Konstantin Borisov (Mission Specialist).
After launching from Kennedy Space Center, the Crew Dragon capsule is scheduled to dock with the Space Station ~23 hours in a while Saturday, August twenty sixth.
As for the Falcon 9 launching Crew 7, it’ll be a rookie, Booster 1081. B1081 went through a full-duration static fire test campaign on the McGregor Test Facility in Texas before arriving in Florida. Normally, SpaceX will complete one other much shorter static fire at Launch Complex 39A a few days before launch, especially for a crewed mission to make sure the booster performs nominally during launch.
If this launch isn’t delayed, SpaceX could launch 3 Falcon 9 rockets next week.