SpaceX launch expected to draw crowd of 500,000 as astronauts set for mission
- The crewed mission is only the second time in almost a decade that astronauts will have launched from US soil
- After a 27-hour ride, the four astronauts will reach the International Space Station for a six-month stay
The Crew-1 launch of America’s Mike Hopkins, Victor Glover and Shannon Walker and Japan’s Soichi Noguchi – who for weeks have been quarantining with their families as they complete training – is scheduled for Sunday at 7.27pm from Kennedy Space Centre’s 39A launch pad. They will take off aboard a Falcon 9 rocket.
After a 27-hour ride in the Crew Dragon capsule they have named Resilience, the four of them will reach the International Space Station for a six-month stay, joining three other astronauts who arrived in October by a Russian Soyuz rocket.
They are slated to return in April, around the same time Nasa and SpaceX plan to send up Crew-2.
The launch was originally scheduled for Saturday evening but delayed for a day after Tropical Storm Eta delayed transporting the drone ship, a floating landing pad of sorts, that will catch the rocket’s reusable booster. SpaceX plans to reuse the booster for the Crew-2 mission.
“For Nasa and SpaceX, this booster is very important to us,” said Benji Reed, SpaceX’s senior director for human space flight. “Fundamentally, this was an issue of getting the drone ship there in time.”