Moscow. April 23. INTERFAX.RU – SpaceX's Crew Dragon-2 spacecraft with four astronauts on board on Friday starts to the International Space Station (ISS), NASA reports.
The spacecraft will be launched using a heavy Falcon 9 launch vehicle at 05:49 US East Coast time (12:49 Moscow time) from Launch Complex 39A of the Kennedy Comic Center in Florida.
The crew of Crew Dragon-2 includes representatives of three space agencies at once – NASA astronauts Megan MacArthur (commander of the spacecraft) and Shane Kimbrough (pilot), astronaut of the European Space Agency (ESA) Thomas Peske and astronaut of the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) Akihiko Hoshide.
The launch of the manned Crew Dragon-2 is carried out as part of NASA's commercial manned program and a contract with SpaceX, which is the developer of the spacecraft and launch vehicle.
The spacecraft's reusable descent capsule will make its second flight to the ISS. It was first used during the Crew Dragon manned test flight to the ISS last spring. The reusable first stage of the Falcon 9 launch vehicle, which after launch will have to land vertically on the automatic platform Of Course I Still Love You in the Atlantic, will be used for the fourth time.
It is noted that the spacecraft crew will work on the ISS for about six months as part of the station's general crew of seven.
On Saturday, April 24, at approximately 05:09 US East Coast time (12:09 GMT), Crew Dragon will automatically dock with the ISS. For the first time, two Crew Dragon ships will be docked to the station.
The Crew-2 crew will leave the station no earlier than October 31. The descent capsule will have to make a soft landing by parachute in the Atlantic.
For a time, the Crew Dragon-2 astronauts will be on the ISS along with the Crew Dragon-1 crew, which currently works at the station and also consists of four people. The return of the Crew Dragon-1 is scheduled for April 28.
Meanwhile, NASA and SpaceX are already preparing a flight to the MSC of the Crew Dragon-3 spacecraft. It is slated for October 23rd.
Currently, the ISS crew consists of Roskosmos cosmonauts Oleg Novitsky and Pyotr Dubrov and NASA astronaut Mark Vande Hai, who arrived on the ISS on April 9 on the Soyuz MS-18 spacecraft, and also arrived at the station on the Crew Dragon spacecraft on November 17, 2020 -1 American astronauts Michael Hopkins, Victor Glover, Shannon Walker (who is the station commander) and Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) astronaut Soichi Noguchi.
