A SpaceX Dragon capsule carrying 4 private astronauts will arrive on the International Space Station (ISS) on Monday morning (May 22), and you may watch the motion live.
The Dragon, named Freedom, launched atop a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket on Sunday evening (May 21), kicking off the private Ax-2 mission to the orbiting lab.
Freedom is scheduled to dock with the ISS on Monday at 9:24 a.m. EDT (1324 GMT), ending a virtually 17-hour orbital chase. Watch the rendezvous here on Space.com, courtesy of NASA, or directly via the space agency. Coverage will begin at 7:30 a.m. EDT (1130 GMT) and proceed through hatch opening at 11:13 a.m. EDT (1513 GMT) and welcoming remarks from ISS astronauts about half-hour after that.
Ax-2 is commanded by former NASA astronaut Peggy Whitson, who now works for Axiom Space, the Houston-based company operating the mission. Businessman and paying customer John Shoffner serves as pilot, and Ali AlQarni and Rayyanah Barnawi, two members of Saudi Arabia’s inaugural astronaut class, are Ax-2 mission specialists. AlQarni and Barnawi shall be the primary Saudis to go to the ISS, and Barnawi is the primary woman from the dominion ever to achieve space.
Whitson has already spent more time in space than every other American astronaut, and with Ax-2 becomes the primary woman to command a non-public spaceflight.
The Ax-2 crew will join the seven members of the present Expedition 69 aboard the ISS. After getting acclimated to the microgravity environment in low Earth orbit, the crew has a busy docket of research investigations, science experiments and academic outreach to occupy their time over the eight-day mission.
Studies into the degradation of mRNA in space, recent communications systems and radiation-shielding polymers are amongst greater than 20 projects the Ax-2 crew will engage in before they return to Earth at the tip of the month.
After undocking from the orbiting lab, Ax-2’s Dragon capsule Freedom will deorbit and splash down off the coast of Florida.