A SpaceX Dragon spacecraft carrying 4 astronauts will arrive on the International Space Station early Sunday (Aug. 27) and you possibly can watch all of it live online in a free livestream.
The Crew Dragon capsule Endurance is scheduled to achieve the International Space Station (ISS) at 8:39 a.m. EDT (1239 GMT), where it can dock itself to a space-facing port on the outpost’s U.S.-built Harmony module.
The docking will mark the tip of a virtually 30-hour journey for the capsule’s four-person crew, which launched within the wee hours of Saturday from NASA’s Pad 39A on the Kennedy Space Center in Florida. You’ll be able to watch the docking live online, courtesy of NASA TV and SpaceX, starting at 6:45 a.m. EDT (1045 GMT). It’s going to appear at start time within the window above, or you possibly can watch directly from NASA TV.
“SpaceX, thanks for the ride, it was awesome,” Crew-7 commander Jasmin Moghbeli of NASA said after the crew reached orbit. “Go Crew-7, awesome ride.”
SpaceX’s Crew-7 mission for NASA is ferrying Moghbeli to the ISS with a very international crew: pilot Andreas Mogensen of the European Space Agency; and mission specialists Konstantin Borisov of Russia’s Roscosmos agency and Satoshi Furukawa of the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency. The quartet is the primary all-international crew, with members from 4 different agencies and countries, to fly on the identical Dragon capsule.
The mission is the seventh operational business crew flight for NASA by SpaceX, and the corporate’s eighth for the U.S. space agency overall (including a crewed test flight). It’s SpaceX’s eleventh crewed mission when including three private astronaut flights in recent times.
The Crew-7 astronauts are starting a six-month expedition to the space station and can relieve the 4 astronauts of NASA’s Crew-6 mission, who’re because of return shortly after Moghbeli and her crew arrive.
Crew-7 is the primary spaceflight for Moghbeli, a U.S. Marine Corps Lieutenant Colonel who became the second Iranian-American to fly in space on the flight. Additionally it is Borisov’s first flight.
Related: Meet the astronauts of Crew-7 flying with SpaceX
While Morgensen and Furukawa have each flown to the ISS before, Morgensen is the primary European ever to pilot a SpaceX Dragon capsule. SpaceX’s Endurance capsule can also be an area veteran, having flown the Crew-3 and Crew-5 astronaut missions to the station for NASA.
NASA and SpaceX have a special treat planned for Crew-7’s arrival on the ISS on Sunday.
“We’re gonna do a fly around fly around of the International Space Station and get some cool photos, and get that out to everybody to point out what an awesome outpost we’ve,” Joel Montalbano, NASA’s space station program manager, told reporters after the launch.