The Falcon 9 launch vehicle is a combination of the Crew-8 Dragon manned spacecraft.
At 11:53 a.m. Beijing time on March 4, 2024 (22:53 EST on March 3), SpaceX will launch the Falcon 9 carrier rocket with the Crew-8 Dragon manned spacecraft from the LC-39A station at the Kennedy Space Center to put the spacecraft into rendezvous and docking orbit. Previously, the launch time was repeatedly postponed due to poor weather in the ascent path of the rocket at the launch time.
From left: Grey Benkin, Bharat, Dominic, Ips.
The CREW-8 mission is SpaceX's 8th crew rotation mission and 9th manned mission (including the DEMO-2 manned test flight) for NASA, using the Endeavour Dragon manned spacecraft for the fifth flight. The crew consisted of four astronauts from the United States and Russia, including mission commander Matthew Dominick, pilot Michael Barratt, mission specialist Jeanette Epps, and mission specialist Aleksandr Grebenkin, of whom Greben is a Russian cosmonaut and the rest are American astronauts. The crew-8 crew, with the exception of Balat, was the third flight (the second long-term flight), and the rest were the first flights.
According to the new schedule, at 16:00 Beijing time on March 5, the spacecraft will dock with the forward port of the "Harmony" node module of the International Space Station, and the hatch will open about 1 hour and 45 minutes after docking, and then the 70th astronauts of the 70th expeditionary team in orbit will connect with the crew family and mission ** on the ground to give a welcome speech for the new upward crew-8 crew. On this trip, the CREW-8 crew will take over from the CREW-7 crew to carry out space residency work, and the two crews will inter-stay for a week to complete the on-orbit work handover, and then the CREW-7 crew will return to Earth in mid-March aboard the Endurance Dragon manned spacecraft. The crew-8 crew of four astronauts will stay in orbit for six months and return in the fall of this year.
In addition to the higher requirements for the status of spacecraft and launch vehicles, the "zero window" and "narrow window" launch must be implemented in full docking requirements. In addition, due to the higher reliability requirements and special safety requirements of manned launches, the weather conditions near the ascending channel of the launch time are also more demanding, so manned launches are often delayed or even postponed continuously.
Author: Mulan Xingzhou.
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