NASA's Crew-7 Mission Begins Final Countdown For ISS Trip On SpaceX Rocket

Members of NASA‘s upcoming crew-7 mission arrived at Kennedy Space Center in Florida on Sunday and are now doing the final preparations ahead of their upcoming flight to the International Space Station. The mission is expected to launch this Friday at 3:49 a.m. EDT.

What Happened: Four astronauts will be aboard the Dragon spacecraft named Endurance scheduled to dock at the space station a day after launch on Saturday. The Endurance spacecraft flew crew-3 and crew-5 missions before. The spacecraft will again be carried by SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket.

The crew includes NASA astronaut Jasmin Moghbeli, European Space Agency astronaut Andreas Mogensen, Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency astronaut Satoshi Furukawa, and Roscosmos cosmonaut Konstantin Borisov.

Why It Matters: NASA will conduct the flight readiness review on Monday. The crew is planning to spend about six months at the station before returning in the first quarter of next year.

The mission will be the seventh crew rotation mission with SpaceX to the space station and the four astronauts onboard will perform research technology demonstrations, and maintenance activities during their time there.

Crew-6 astronauts who went to the station in March will hand over activities to the new crew and return a few days later.

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