SpaceX's Dragon Space Capsule, "Resilience", To Lift Off, Saturday Night
SpaceX's Dragon space capsule, named Resilience, is expected to lift off at 7:49 p.m. Saturday, November 14th to begin the Crew-1 mission from Kennedy Space Center.
The mission will be the first routine flight of the Dragon to the International Space Station under NASA's Commercial Crew Program.
SpaceX owns the capsule and the Falcon 9 rocket on which it will be carried. In previous years, NASA owned Apollo capsules and space shuttles.
The 4 astronauts touched down in Florida earlier this week, to make final preparations for their flight.
NASA is watching the weather, due to Tropical Storm Eta. It is forecast to strengthen briefly into a hurricane in the next few days, change direction and possibly head toward Florida by Friday.
The spacecraft's commander, NASA astronaut Michael Hopkins, said the crew chose the name Resilience because of the impact of the pandemic.
He said the crew had been in quarantine with family for weeks, and also had fine-tuned their training.
Hopkins, 51, plans to be sworn in as the first U.S. Space Force astronaut during the mission.
He will fly with the pilot Victor Glover, 44, and mission specialists Shannon Walker and Soichi Noguchi, both 55. Noguchi is a Japanese astronaut.
Glover is the only crew member who hasn't flown into space.
The previous crewed SpaceX capsule, which returned to Earth on Aug. 2, was a test flight that carried two astronauts and spent two months in orbit.
Read More on this mission from NASA here: https://blogs.nasa.gov/commercialcrew/2020/11/08/nasas-spacex-crew-1-astronauts-touch-down-at-florida-spaceport/