JAKARTA – The newest team of astronauts to the International Space Station, three from NASA and a crew from Germany, prepare for a planned launch aboard a SpaceX rocket on Wednesday, November 10. Although conditions in the area were rainy and cloudy, the weather at the Florida launch site is predicted to be sunny in time.
The launch vehicle created by SpaceX, consisting of a Crew Dragon capsule perched atop a two-stage Falcon 9 rocket, is set to take off at 9:03 p.m. (9 a.m. western Indonesia time, Thursday) from NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida.
If all goes well, three US astronauts and a European Space Agency (ESA) astronaut will arrive about 22 hours later and dock with the space station 250 miles (400 km) above Earth to begin a six-month science mission above laboratory orbit.
Intermittent rain and heavy clouds over the Cape on Wednesday raised fresh doubts about whether the prospects for a launch could go ahead as planned, although NASA said its latest forecast said there was a 70% chance of favorable weather conditions for liftoff. Commentators for NASA's live webcast of pre-launch activities said the weather was expected to be moderately sunny at launch time.
A series of weather delays have disrupted the mission since its original launch window on October 31. One of the delays earlier this month was linked to an undisclosed astronaut's medical problem.
Joining NASA's Crew 3 astronauts on SpaceX rockets this time are flight commander Raja Chari (44), mission pilot Tom Marshburn (61), and mission specialist Kayla Barron, (34) as well as German astronaut and ESA mission specialist Matthias Maurer (51).
After putting on their white and black flight suit helmets for a final check, they walked out of the space center's operations building, waving to cheer on loved ones and well-wishers. They are then escorted by assistants under umbrellas to three cars waiting to take them to the launch pad to board the Dragon capsule, dubbed Endurance.
Chari, a U.S. Air Force test and jet fighter pilot, Barron, a U.S. Navy submarine officer and nuclear engineer, and Maurer, a materials science engineer, all made their first space flight on the mission. The three rookies will be the 599th, 600th, and 601st humans in space, according to SpaceX.
Both Chari and Barron were also among the first group of 18 astronauts selected last year for NASA's upcoming Artemis mission to the moon.
Marshburn, a doctor, and former NASA flight surgeon, is the crew's most experienced astronaut, having recorded two previous space flights and four spacewalks. He was part of the 13-member team that helped assemble the space station in 2009 and returned to the orbiting outpost on the 2012-2013 mission.
'Crew 3'
Wednesday's liftoff, if successful, would count as the fifth human spaceflight SpaceX has accomplished to date, following the launch of "Inspiration 4" in September that sent all civilian crew members into orbit for the first time.
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The latest mission will mark the fourth crew that NASA has launched to orbit aboard a SpaceX vehicle in 17 months, building a public-private partnership with the rocket company formed in 2002 by billionaire Elon Musk, also founder of electric car maker Tesla Inc.
Their collaboration helped usher in a new era for NASA that led to the first launch of American astronauts last year from US soil in nine years, since stopping flying the shuttle in 2011.
The team set for Wednesday's launch has been designated "Crew -3" - NASA and SpaceX's third "operational" crew has flown to the space station following a test run of two astronauts in May 2020.
Previously, four "Crew 2" astronauts safely returned to Earth Monday night from a record 199-day mission in orbit. They landed in the Gulf of Mexico off the coast of Florida after an eight-hour journey home from the space station.
The latest mission also follows the recent flurry of high-profile astro-tourist flights. In July, SpaceX's two rivals, Blue Origin and Virgin Galactic Holding Inc, launched back-to-back flights with their respective billionaire founders, Jeff Bezos and Richard Branson, on board.
Last month, 90-year-old actor William Shatner, best known for playing Captain James T. Kirk in the 1960s "Star Trek" TV series, rode a Blue Origin rocket to become the oldest person to fly in space.
Crew 3 will be greeted at the space station by its three current occupants - two cosmonauts from Russia and Belarus and a US astronaut who shared a Soyuz flight to the orbiting platform earlier this year.
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