CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. — Four astronauts - two from the United States, one from Russia and one from the United Arab Emirates - are headed to NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida Tuesday ahead of a Sunday launch to the International Space Station.
The four had been in routine quarantine ahead of their launch, which is scheduled for 2:07 a.m. Sunday aboard SpaceX's Dragon spacecraft. This Dragon is named Endeavour.
This is the sixth crew rotation mission with astronauts using the SpaceX Dragon spacecraft on a Falcon 9 rocket to the orbiting laboratory as part of the agency’s Commercial Crew Program.
Following the retirement of NASA's Space Shuttle Program in 2011, SpaceX began flying astronauts to the International Space Station in 2020. In the years in-between, NASA astronauts rode aboard Russian spacecraft.
The crew is scheduled to arrive at the space station just over 24 hours after their launch. The Dragon spacecraft is scheduled to dock at the space-facing port of the station’s Harmony module at 2:54 a.m. on Monday.
Several days after the arrival of Crew-6, NASA and SpaceX will prepare to bring Crew-5 home. Crew-5 has been aboard the International Space Station since October. Until their departure, NASA and SpaceX will have two Dragon capsules docked.
The International Space Station is a scientific laboratory operated jointly by several space agencies from a variety of countries. Russia also currently has spacecraft docked.
One of their crafts, the Soyuz MS-22, suffered a pressurization problem with a coolant system. To get that Russian crew home, Russia will be launching an uncrewed Soyuz crew to the space station later this month. The crew will then use that new capsule to return to Earth while the investigation continues on Soyuz MS-22.
In the event of an emergency ahead of their new capsule, officials have reviewed plans to evacuate the three Russian crew members using either their damaged spacecraft or as extra passengers on SpaceX.