Crew flies to Florida ahead of launch to International Space Station

Two NASA astronauts, a Japanese area veteran, and Russia’s lone feminine cosmonaut, flew to the Kennedy Space Center Saturday to put together for launch Wednesday on a flight to the International Space Station aboard a SpaceX Crew Dragon capsule.

Their Falcon 9 rocket was rolled to the highest of historic pad 39A earlier than daybreak Saturday and rotated vertical simply after 12 p.m. Eastern. A couple of minutes later, Crew 5 commander Nicole Mann, Josh Cassada, Japanese astronaut Koichi Wakata and cosmonaut Anna Kikina landed on the spaceport runway after a flight from Houston to start remaining preparations.

“First of all, my prayers and thoughts go out to all the people in Florida who are affected by the devastating hurricane,” Wakata mentioned. “I hope with this launch, we will brighten up the skies over Florida a little bit for everyone.”

The astronauts plan to don their strain fits and strap into the Crew Dragon spacecraft Sunday morning for a dress-rehearsal countdown. Later within the day, SpaceX engineers plan to check fireplace the Falcon 9’s first stage engines to confirm their readiness for flight.

If all goes nicely, Mann and her crewmates will strap in for actual round 9:30 a.m. Wednesday to brace for launch simply after 12 p.m., the second the Earth’s rotation carries the rocket into the airplane of the area station’s orbit.

It will take the crew about 29 hours to meet up with the lab advanced, transferring in for an automatic docking on the station’s ahead port round 5 a.m. Thursday.

Standing by to welcome them on board will likely be Expedition 68 commander Samantha Cristoforetti and her Crew 4 crewmates — Kjell Lindgren, Bob Hines and Jessica Watkins — together with Soyuz MS-22/68S crew members Sergey Prokopyev, Dmitri Petelin and NASA astronaut Frank Rubio, who arrived on the station Sept. 21.

Wakata is making his fifth area flight, whereas Mann, Cassada and Kikina, the primary Russian cosmonaut to fly aboard a Crew Dragon, are area rookies.

Rubio’s addition to the Soyuz crew, and Kikina’s addition to Crew 5, had been the outcome of a current settlement between NASA and Roscosmos, the Russian federal area company, that is designed to guarantee at the least one U.S. astronaut and one Russian cosmonaut are aboard the station always.

Without such an settlement, a medical emergency — or another drawback which may power a Crew Dragon or Soyuz to depart early — might go away the station with an all-Russian or all-NASA-sponsored crew with out the experience to function the opposite nation’s techniques.

Kikina mentioned she was thrilled by the chance.

“I want to share with you my feelings,” she mentioned in damaged English. “I really want to say, from my side, and to everybody who made for me that unbelievable, incredible opportunity to be a part of our joint, big something, for all of us. And to be a part of that great, for me, maybe for you also, Crew 5. I really love my crewmates, I really feel comfortable.”

Kikina, who joined the Roscosmos Cosmonaut Corps in 2012, mentioned she was surprised when informed she was being assigned to Crew 5.

“My leaders just appoint me and told me, do you want to be part of Crew 5? Yes. Why not? But I was so surprised.”