Crew for SpaceX's Crew-3 mission. (Image credit NASA
SpaceX's latest crewed mission into space is now available for launch
Crew-3 is the fifth crewed space flight by the company and its fourth to orbit. Crew-3 will fly four astronauts aboard a SpaceX Crew Dragon capsule on Saturday, October 30th.
The original Oct. 23 launch date was delayed to Oct. 31, but the liftoff was pushed back a day earlier. Launch Complex 39A, NASA's Kennedy Space Center, Florida, will launch the crew on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket at 02:43 EDT (0643 GMT).
"Wow, this is an exciting time," Kathy Leuders, associate administrator of the Space Operations Mission Directorate at NASA Headquarters in Washington, D.C., stated during a press conference on Wednesday, Oct. 6. It's an exciting time for our International Space Station ecosystem as we prepare to continue using the space station for another ten years.
Photos: SpaceX's Crew-2 mission from the International Space Station to SpaceX
Crew-3 will carry NASA astronauts Raja Chari and Tom Marshburn, Kayla Barron, as well as Matthias Maurer from the European Space Agency to the orbiting laboratory for a six month mission.
The mission follows Inspiration4, an all-civil crewed mission, which launched on Sept. 15 to orbit aboard a SpaceX Crew Dragon spacecraft. SpaceX's Crew-1 and Crew-2 crewed missions successfully lifted crews to space station. This was following Demo-2, which was the first crewed test flight by the company that brought NASA astronauts Bob Behnken to the station in 2020.
Crew-3 will see "the four crews going up" do even more science, Leuders stated, adding that they would continue to test and push the boundaries of technology, as well as establish key international partnerships.
The crew will be flying with an assortment of scientific equipment to do this science. Space.com was briefed by Joel Montalbano (manager of NASA's International Space Station Program). He said that every time an increment mission is flown, there are about 300 investigations we do onboard. This expedition will not be any different." He said that the flight would include experiments that cross over from technology development and science, as well as utilization and science.
He stated that experiments will be conducted onboard that combine human and rodent research, as well as other similar experimentation to that done on station.
Montalbano said that we are just beginning the process of what is called our readiness reviews. Montalbano said, "So we'll have station readiness review. A commercial crew readiness review. And then we'll do the flight readiness review. This is where we go over all the statuses of the payloads that are due to fly."
Although the six-month mission will see the astronauts working hard for the station, there will be some time to have fun. Crew members will arrive just in time to celebrate Halloween, and they will also live in the lab during winter holidays.
Montalbano stated that crew members are taken care of for holidays. We try to surprise or give pre-planned gifts to crew members for every vehicle that is involved in a holiday event. We'll do it again for the next Halloween.
