Florida, November 15: SpaceX Crew Dragon "Resilience" is all set to make history on Sunday as it will be the first-ever operational commercial crew mission to the International Space Station (ISS). It will carry four astronauts to the ISS. Hopkins, Pilot Victor Glover, and Mission Specialists Shannon Walker and Soichi Noguchi will be crew members of "Resilience". The spacecraft will take off at 7.27 pm EST. SpaceX's Delta 4-Heavy Launch Stopped Due to Technical Issue; ULA Aborts Mission Minutes Before Take-Off.
The flight of Crew-1 of "resilience" was postponed to Sunday due to bad weather. The Crew-1 flight was earlier scheduled to launch on a Falcon 9 on Saturday at 7.49 pm EST from Launch Complex 39A at NASA's Kennedy Space Center. The decision was taken to delay the launch after teams completed the final major review for the mission on Friday. SpaceX Completes Falcon 9 and Crew Dragon Spacecraft Static Fire Test Ahead of Crew-1 Launch.
The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) and SpaceX will now be targeting Sunday for the launch of the Crew-1 mission to the ISS. Crew-1 is the first crew rotation flight of a US commercial spacecraft with astronauts to the space station following the spacecraft system's official human rating certification.
According to NASA, the Crew Dragon is scheduled to dock to the space station at about 11 pm on Monday. The Crew Dragon, including the Falcon 9 rocket and associated ground systems, has thus become the first new, crew spacecraft to be NASA-certified for regular flights with astronauts since the space shuttle nearly 40 years ago.
(The above story first appeared on LatestLY on Nov 15, 2020 05:37 PM IST. For more news and updates on politics, world, sports, entertainment and lifestyle, log on to our website latestly.com).