A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket with the Crew Dragon Endeavour capsule carrying the Crew-8 mission launches from launch pad 39A at NASA’s Kennedy Area Middle in Florida on March 3, 2024.
Chandan Khanna/AFP by way of Getty Photos
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Chandan Khanna/AFP by way of Getty Photos
A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket with the Crew Dragon Endeavour capsule carrying the Crew-8 mission launches from launch pad 39A at NASA’s Kennedy Area Middle in Florida on March 3, 2024.
Chandan Khanna/AFP by way of Getty Photos
A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket thundered off the launch pad on the Kennedy Area Middle in Florida throughout a fiery nighttime liftoff simply earlier than 11 p.m. ET on Sunday. 4 folks have been aboard the capsule as NASA’s Crew-8 mission will get underway.
For the following 28 hours, the capsule will race to the Worldwide Area Station because it orbits greater than 250 miles above the Earth. As soon as it catches up, it will dock autonomously round 3 a.m. ET on Tuesday and the crew will spend the following six months on the orbital laboratory.
There was some concern within the minutes earlier than launch a few “small crack” seen in a seal when the capsule’s facet hatch was closed. SpaceX informed the crew there could be no concern throughout liftoff – however on the capsule’s return when the hovering temperatures of re-entry might pose security issues. After evaluation, SpaceX’s engineers stated they have been assured it could not be a difficulty for the mission.
The Crew-8 mission members are three NASA astronauts and a Russian cosmonaut. The commander is NASA’s Matthew Dominick, pilot Michael Barratt, mission specialists Jeanette Epps and Alexander Grebenkin of Roscosmos, Russia’s area company.
That is the primary spaceflight for Dominick, Epps and Grebenkin. It is the third for Barratt.
Throughout their time on the I.S.S., NASA says the crew plans to conduct greater than 200 experiments and scientific demonstrations. These embrace finding out the consequences of microgravity and UV radiation on crops, utilizing stem cells to create fashions to review degenerative illness and testing whether or not sporting stress cuffs on the legs might forestall fluid shifts and cut back well being issues in astronauts.
They’re going to relieve the 4 folks on the Crew-7 mission which launched final August and is ready to splashdown off the Florida coast in a few week.
The I.S.S. has been continuously occupied since November 2000. Usually seven individuals are aboard because the soccer field-sized station circles the earth at 5 miles per second.
That is the thirteenth time SpaceX has launched people into area since 2020 and comes a day after the fifth anniversary of SpaceX’s first uncrewed demonstration launch of the Crew Dragon capsule. And, with this mission, the personal firm has despatched 50 folks into orbit. By comparability, in the course of the Apollo period (together with the lunar missions, Skylab launches and Apollo-Soyuz), NASA launched 45 into area.
Members of NASA’s Crew-8 mission pause earlier than heading to launch complicated 39A on the Kennedy Area Middle in Florida on March 3, 2024. They’re (from L) Roscosmos cosmonaut and mission specialist Alexander Grebenkin, NASA astronaut and pilot Michael Barratt, NASA astronaut and commander Matthew Dominick and NASA astronaut and mission specialist Jeanette Epps.
Gregg Newton/AFP by way of Getty Photos
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Gregg Newton/AFP by way of Getty Photos
Members of NASA’s Crew-8 mission pause earlier than heading to launch complicated 39A on the Kennedy Area Middle in Florida on March 3, 2024. They’re (from L) Roscosmos cosmonaut and mission specialist Alexander Grebenkin, NASA astronaut and pilot Michael Barratt, NASA astronaut and commander Matthew Dominick and NASA astronaut and mission specialist Jeanette Epps.
Gregg Newton/AFP by way of Getty Photos
