From left, NASA astronauts Warren “Woody” Hoburg and Stephen Bowen, along with Roscosmos cosmonaut Andrey Fedyaev and UAE (United Arab Emirates) astronaut Sultan Alneyadi, prepare to depart the Neil A. Armstrong Operations and Checkout Building at Kennedy Space Center in Florida during a dress rehearsal for NASA’s SpaceX Crew-6 mission launch on Feb. 23, 2023.
Joel Kowsky/NASA
NASA and SpaceX are teaming up to send an international batch of astronauts to orbit early Monday morning from Kennedy Space Center in Florida.
The Crew-6 mission actually marks the seventh crewed Dragon flight for NASA and the ninth time the vehicle has flown humans to orbit. Inspiration4, helmed by billionaire Jared Isaacman, was an all-civilian mission in the same vehicle, and last year’s Axiom-1 flight took commercial passengers to the ISS.
On board this time for the trip to prepare for a crew rotation on the ISS will be NASA astronauts Warren “Woody” Hoburg and Stephen Bowen, Roscosmos cosmonaut Andrey Fedyaev and United Arab Emirates astronaut Sultan Alneyadi, who will be just the second UAE astronaut to visit the ISS.
Crew-6 is launching to the @Space_Station! We’ll begin live coverage tomorrow from @NASAKennedy at 10:15pm EST on @NASA TV, then right after launch, we’re continuing our coverage from Mission Control with an audio-only stream on YouTube: https://t.co/5O2r538VFC pic.twitter.com/UujpJaTge7
— NASA’s Johnson Space Center (@NASA_Johnson) February 25, 2023
NASA’s Nicole Mann and Josh Cassada along with Koichi Wakata of the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency and Anna Kikina of Roscosmos are set to return to Earth from the ISS next month.
Liftoff of Crew-6 was originally slated for Sunday but was moved back a day to allow for additional preparation and checkout time. It’s now targeted for 1:45 a.m. EST Monday (10:45 p.m. PST on Sunday night) from SpaceX’s Launch Complex 39A.
The crew will spend some time orbiting Earth and aligning the Dragon for docking with the ISS a little more than 24 hours later at 2:38 a.m. EST Tuesday (11:38 p.m. PST Monday night). Once on board the orbiting space station, the quartet is set to remain for up to six months.
You can watch the mission via NASA TV and the live feed above starting with pre-launch coverage at 10:15 p.m. EST (7:15 p.m. PST) Sunday evening.