Crew-2 Mission Launch Updated, Now to Lift Off Early Friday
NASA's Crew-2 mission launch date has been pushed to 5:49 a.m. EDT Friday, April 23, from Launch Complex 39A at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida, due to unfavorable weather conditions forecast along the flight path for Thursday.
“We’re now scheduled for ‘go’ on Friday and the crew is ready.”
Acting NASA Administrator Steve Jurczyk
This is the second crew rotation flight of the SpaceX Crew Dragon and the first with two international partners. The flight follows certification by NASA for regular flights to the space station as part of the agency’s Commercial Crew Program.
The Crew Dragon is scheduled to dock to the space station about 5:10 a.m. Saturday, April. 24.
“We’re now scheduled for ‘go’ on Friday and the crew is ready,” said Acting NASA Administrator Steve Jurczyk at a briefing Wednesday. “I could not be more proud of the Commercial Crew Program, the SpaceX and NASA teams, and what they’ve been able to do to enable reliable, safe, effective transportation to and from space. We are looking forward to a great launch.”
The Crew-2 mission flight will carry NASA astronauts Shane Kimbrough and Megan McArthur – who will serve as the mission’s spacecraft commander and pilot, respectively – along with JAXA (Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency) astronaut Akihiko Hoshide and ESA (European Space Agency) astronaut Thomas Pesquet, who will serve as mission specialists to the space station for a six-month science mission.
The crew will conduct science and maintenance during their six-month stay aboard the space station and will return no earlier than Oct. 31. Adding more crew members aboard the microgravity laboratory increases the time available for scientific activities. The November 2020 addition of the Crew-1 astronauts more than doubled crew hours spent on science research and support activities, and Crew-2 will continue the important investigations and technology demonstrations that are preparing for future Artemis missions to the Moon, helping us improve our understanding of Earth’s climate, and improving life on our home planet.
An important scientific focus on this expedition is continuing a series of Tissue Chips in Space studies. Tissue chips are small models of human organs containing multiple cell types that behave much the same as they do in the body. Another important element of the Crew-2 mission is augmenting the station’s solar power system by installing the first pair of six new ISS Roll-out Solar Arrays (iROSA).
NASA’s Commercial Crew Program has delivered on its goal of safe, reliable, and cost-effective transportation to and from the International Space Station from the United States through a partnership with American private industry. This partnership is changing the arc of human spaceflight history by opening access to low-Earth orbit and the International Space Station to more people, more science, and more commercial opportunities. The space station remains the springboard to NASA's next great leap in space exploration, including future missions to the Moon and, eventually, to Mars.
(Image provided with NASA news release)