A graphic for NASA’s SpaceX Crew-9 mission is displayed on the historic countdown clock at the NASA News Center at the agency’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida on Tuesday, Sept. 24, 2024. Photo credit: NASA/Cory S Huston
NASA will host an International Space Station 101 panel livestream at 1:15 p.m. Friday, Sept 27. Agency experts will provide an overview about the space station, operations, science, living and working in space, and take questions from reporters and social media.
Participants in the livestream panel include:
NASA Associate Administrator Jim Free
Robyn Gatens, director, NASA’s International Space Station Program, and acting director, NASA’s Commercial Spaceflight Division
Jennifer Buchli, chief scientist, NASA’s International Space Station Program
John Posey, Dragon engineer, NASA’s Commercial Crew Program
NASA will stream the briefing beginning at 1:15 p.m. on NASA+ and the agency’s website. Learn how to stream NASA content through a variety of platforms, including social media.
Following the panel discussion, leaders from NASA and SpaceX will host a prelaunch news conference at 5 p.m. to discuss final steps leading up to the 1:17 p.m. Saturday, Sept. 28 launch from Space Launch Complex-40 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station.
NASA astronaut Nick Hague, commander, and Roscosmos cosmonaut Aleksandr Gorbunov, mission specialist, make up the two-man team who will launch aboard a SpaceX Dragon spacecraft and the company’s Falcon 9 rocket to the orbiting laboratory.
Launch weather officers with Cape Canaveral Space Force Station’s 45th Weather Squadron predict a 55% of favorable weather conditions for the launch. Cumulus cloud rule, flight through precipitation, surface electric fields rule are the primary weather concerns.
SpaceX Crew-9 Nears Launch During Station Upkeep Duties
Hurricane Helene is pictured in the Gulf of Mexico heading toward Florida’s Gulf Coast in this photograph from the International Space Station. Credit: NASA
Two SpaceX Crew-9 crewmates are counting down to a Saturday launch, weather permitting, and beginning a five-month mission aboard the International Space Station. Meanwhile, crew departure preparations and lab maintenance duties were ongoing for the Expedition 72 orbital residents on Thursday.
Commander Nick Hague of NASA and Mission Specialist Aleksandr Gorbunov of Roscosmos are at Kennedy Space Center in Florida preparing for their liftoff aboard the SpaceX Dragon spacecraft targeted for no earlier than 1:17 p.m. EDT on Saturday, as the impacts from Hurricane Helene to the Florida peninsula are better understood. The duo will ride Dragon in low Earth orbit for a day before docking to the Harmony module’s forward port at 5:30 p.m. on Sunday. Hague and Gorbunov will open the hatch about an hour-and-a-half later and join Expedition 72 before returning to Earth in February. NASA’s launch and docking coverage begins at 9:10 a.m. Saturday and will stream on NASA+ and the agency’s website. Learn how to stream NASA content through a variety of platforms, including social media.
Soon after Crew-9 arrives, three astronauts and a cosmonaut will end their six-and-a-half-month mission and depart the space station. NASA astronauts Matthew Dominick, Mike Barratt, and Jeanette Epps with Roscosmos cosmonaut Alexander Grebenkin will return to Earth aboard the SpaceX Dragon spacecraft for a splashdown off the coast of Florida. The SpaceX Crew-8 quartet practiced Dragon departure and deorbit techniques on a computer Thursday getting ready for next month’s return to Earth.
Space station Commander Suni Williams and Flight Engineer Butch Wilmore, who are due to fly back home with Crew-9 in February, reviewed Dragon pressure suit characteristics. Williams also transferred cargo in and out of the Cygnus cargo craft. Afterward, Epps and Barratt helped Williams collect her blood samples for processing, stowage, and later analysis. Wilmore joined Dominick and swapped components on the orbital outpost’s toilet, also called the waste and hygiene compartment, located in the Tranquility module. Grebenkin tried on the Roscosmos-designed lower body negative pressure suit that may help crews adjust quicker upon return to Earth’s gravity.
NASA astronaut Don Pettit, who is on his fourth spaceflight, spent Thursday cleaning sampling hardware inside the Electrostatic Levitation Furnace, a research device that explores the thermophysical properties of materials heated to extreme temperatures. Cosmonauts Alexey Ovchinin and Nikolai Chub worked throughout the day servicing electronics and life support systems in the orbiting lab’s Roscosmos segment.
Crew Rotation Preps Continue Amidst Human Research on Station
The SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket performs a brief static fire test at the Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida before the launch of the Crew-9 mission. Credit: NASA/Keegan Barber
As one crew on Earth prepares to launch to the International Space Station another crew is getting ready to depart the orbital outpost. In the meantime, human research is underway as the Expedition 72 crew members continue exploring how their bodies are adapting to microgravity.
The SpaceX Dragon spacecraft atop the Falcon 9 rocket is counting down to a lift off targeted for no earlier than 1:17 p.m. EDT on Saturday, Sept. 28, weather permitting. Dragon will carry SpaceX Crew-9 members NASA astronaut Nick Hague and Roscosmos cosmonaut Aleksandr Gorbunov to the space station for a five-month space research mission. Crew-9 will launch from Space Launch Complex-40 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida.
Back in space, three astronauts and one cosmonaut are nearing the end of their mission that began on March 5. The four SpaceX Crew-8 members Matthew Dominick, Mike Barratt, Jeanette Epps, and Alexander Grebenkin, joined each other on Wednesday and checked out the pressure suits and the communication gear they will wear as they descend to Earth inside Dragon after six-and-a-half months in space. Dominick and Barratt, Crew-8 commander and pilot, also reviewed the spacecraft’s systems and procedures ahead of next month’s undocking and landing.
Epps also joined Barratt and scanned his chest with the Ultrasound 2 device as doctors on the ground monitored for the CIPHER suite of 14 human research investigations. Electrodes on Barratt’s chest also provided data helping scientists understand potential space-caused changes to his cardiovascular and muscular systems. NASA Flight Engineer Don Pettit, who has been aboard the orbiting lab since Sept. 11, pedaled on the Destiny laboratory module’s exercise cycle while attached sensors and wearing breathing gear that measured his aerobic capacity.
Cosmonauts Alexey Ovchinin and Ivan Vagner wore virtual reality goggles that tracked their eye movements providing details about how a crew member’s sense of balance adapts to the lack of gravity. The duo then worked throughout the day maintaining power systems and life support gear in the Roscosmos segment of the space station.
Station Commander Suni Williams took turns with NASA Flight Engineer Butch Wilmore on Wednesday training for upcoming cargo operations inside the arriving and departing SpaceX Dragon vehicles. The duo then split up as Williams swapped out combustion research gear and Wilmore collected microbe samples from lab module surfaces for incubation and analysis.
Williams Leads Station as Crew Swap Operations Continue
NASA astronauts Suni Williams and Butch Wilmore make pizza aboard the International Space Station’s galley located inside the Unity module.
Expedition 72 is officially underway with NASA astronaut Suni Williams as its commander aboard the International Space Station. Meanwhile, the nine orbital residents are awaiting more visitors while also preparing for the next crew departure.
Williams took command of the orbital outpost when NASA astronaut Tracy C. Dyson and Roscosmos cosmonauts Oleg Kononenko and Nikolai Chub undocked from the Prichal docking module at 4:36 a.m. EDT on Monday. The trio inside the Soyuz MS-25 crew ship parachuted to a landing in Kazakhstan at 7:59 a.m. EDT (4:59 p.m. Kazakhstan time).
Williams, who arrived at the station with NASA Flight Engineer Butch Wilmore on June 6, will lead orbital outpost operations until February when she and Wilmore are scheduled to return to Earth with the SpaceX Crew-9 members aboard the Dragon Endurance spacecraft. Williams was busy Tuesday readying standard emergency equipment ahead of Crew-9’s upcoming arrival. Wilmore explored how specialized substances gel and coarsen possibly leading to advancements in the pharmaceutical, food, and 3D printing industries.
NASA and SpaceX teams have adjusted the next launch opportunity for NASA’s SpaceX Crew-9 mission to no earlier than 1:17 p.m. EDT, Saturday, Sept. 28, from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida due to expected tropical storm conditions in the area. The change allows teams to complete a rehearsal of launch day activities Tuesday night with the SpaceX Dragon spacecraft and Falcon 9 rocket, which rolled to Space Launch Complex-40 earlier in the day. Following rehearsal activities, the integrated system will move back to the hangar ahead of any potential storm activity.
Although Tropical Storm Helene is moving through the Gulf of Mexico and expected to impact the Florida panhandle, the storm system is large enough that high winds and heavy rain are expected in the Cape Canaveral and Merritt Island regions on Florida’s east coast.
NASA astronaut Nick Hague and Roscosmos cosmonaut Aleksandr Gorbunov are to launch aboard the Dragon spacecraft to the International Space Station on what will be the ninth crew rotation mission with SpaceX under NASA’s Commercial Crew Program. They will conduct research and perform maintenance activities during their five-month mission. The mission is launch from Space Launch Complex-40 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida.
In the meantime, the SpaceX Crew-8 mission, which has been aboard the station since March 5, is getting ready to end its stay in early October. NASA astronauts Matthew Dominick and Mike Barratt, the Commander and Pilot respectively of Crew-8’s Dragon Endeavour, reviewed spacecraft systems and packed personal items and other cargo throughout Tuesday. Dominick also trained for the upcoming rendezvous and docking of the Crew-9 mission.
Also returning with Crew-8 is NASA astronaut Jeanette Epps and Roscosmos cosmonaut Alexander Gorbunov. However, Epps focused on an advanced life support experiment on Tuesday swapping out hardware on a device that may inform the future design of water and urine processors in different gravity environments. Grebenkin tried on the Roscosmos-designed lower body negative pressure suit with assistance from fellow cosmonaut Ivan Vagner. The suit may alleviate space-caused head and eye pressure symptoms and help crews adjust quicker to the return to Earth’s gravity.
Vagner is continuing to get up to speed with space station systems since his arrival with cosmonaut Alexey Ovchinin and astronaut Don Pettit on Sept. 11. He and Ovchinin spent some time on Tuesday getting familiar with operations aboard the orbital outpost. Pettit worked out on the advanced resistive exercise device as cameras and a motion capture system monitored his form. Observations may inform unique microgravity workouts to keep astronauts fit and healthy on long-term missions farther away from Earth.
NASA, SpaceX Shift Crew-9 Launch to NET Sept. 28 Over Weather Concerns
SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket, with the Dragon spacecraft atop, is vertical at the launch pad of Space Launch Complex-40 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida on Tuesday, Sept. 24, 2024, ahead of NASA’s SpaceX Crew-9 launch to the International Space Station. NASA astronaut Nick Hague, commander, and Roscosmos cosmonaut Aleksandr Gorbunov, mission specialist, will launch to the orbiting laboratory on the company’s ninth crew rotation flight for NASA as part of the agency’s Commercial Crew Program.
NASA and SpaceX teams have adjusted the next launch opportunity for NASA’s SpaceX Crew-9 mission to no earlier than 1:17 p.m. EDT, Saturday, Sept. 28, from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida due to expected tropical storm conditions in the area. The change allows teams to complete a rehearsal of launch day activities Tuesday night with the SpaceX Dragon spacecraft and Falcon 9 rocket, which rolled to Space Launch Complex-40 earlier in the day. Following rehearsal activities, the integrated system will move back to the hangar ahead of any potential storm activity.
Although Tropical Storm Helene is moving through the Gulf of Mexico and expected to impact the Florida panhandle, the storm system is large enough that high winds and heavy rain are expected in the Cape Canaveral and Merritt Island regions on Florida’s east coast.
NASA astronaut Nick Hague and Roscosmos cosmonaut Aleksandr Gorbunov are to launch aboard the Dragon spacecraft to the International Space Station on what will be the ninth crew rotation mission with SpaceX under NASA’s Commercial Crew Program. They will conduct research and perform maintenance activities during their five-month mission. The mission is launch from Space Launch Complex-40 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida.
