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Update at 8:00 pm EST: NASA and SpaceX are pulling out of the launch due to high winds along the ascent corridor.
For the second time this year, SpaceX is preparing to send a quartet of people to the International Space Station. Its Falcon 9 rocket and Crew Dragon Endeavor spacecraft are waiting at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center. However, they will have to wait another day as the weather along the climb corridor did not allow for the launch on Saturday night.
Liftoff of the Crew-8 mission from the historic Launch Complex 39A is now scheduled for Sunday, March 3 at 10:53 pm EST (0353 UTC Sunday). The launch was also delayed from March 1 due to bad weather at the landing area off the coast, where the crew would be rescued in the unlikely event that the mission was canceled mid-ascent.
The 45th Weather Squadron forecast a 75 percent chance of favorable weather on Sunday, with gusty upper-level winds along with clouds in the launch pad area being a watch.
Spaceflight Now will have live coverage from the Kennedy Space Center press site approximately four hours before liftoff.
The mission will be the first for three of the four members of Crew-8. Michael Barratt, the pilot, previously flew a Soyuz and space shuttle Discovery to the ISS in 2009 and 2011 respectively.
“To begin with, the idea of multiple vehicles is a very positive sign for human spaceflight,” Barratt said. “Different entities: government agency, private agency, different government agency. “Human spaceflight is flourishing and that is a really good thing.”
Barratt said that while the SpaceX Dragon certainly has its advantages as a newer vehicle, there is something to admire about its vehicles from the past.
“There are many common elements. The physics transfer quite well, but the functionality, redundancy, safety, amenities and human interfaces are all different between vehicles,” he said. “And personally, I find learning those differences very exciting.”
Mission Specialist Jeannette Epps also trained on three different vehicles. She was first set to fly as a member of Expedition 56/57 in 2018, but she was removed from that mission without explanation from NASA. She was then assigned to the first operational flight of Boeing’s Starliner spacecraft before she suffered years of delays.
She said all the comments from people over the years are not important to her now. Epps said she is excited to finally be able to travel to space for the first time after being selected as an astronaut in 2009.
“I have to stay focused on what is important and the first thing for me is to try to be a conscientious worker and in training, be aware of the work in front of me and make sure I don’t focus on things that are no longer important. ” Epps said. “What happened in the past is in the past and will be there. I don’t want to get ahead of it because we have a lot of good things happening now.”
During a pre-launch press conference, Epps said the most important souvenir he will take into space is a photo of his mother. In a one-on-one interview with Spaceflight Now, he emphasized his mother’s impact on his journey.
“She knew I had been selected for the astronaut position and her words to me were, ‘I’m so happy for you.’ This is what you always wanted in life and I know you will do well.’ And then shortly after, she passed away, which was kind of intense for me at the time,” Epps said. “But having the body and coming to live in Houston really put me on the path of wanting to make my mom proud of me, if that makes sense.”
Crew-8 commander Matthew Dominick will also make his first flight into space. A member of the 2017 astronaut class, The Turtles, his flight to the space station will help maintain a continued presence for this group of astronauts. NASA astronaut Raja Chari jokingly called the concept “Turtle Shot” when he and Kayla Barron launched as members of Crew-3 in 2021.
“We almost lost that. Fortunately, there was a small accident with a booster that hit a bridge, because Crew-5 is great, Crew-5 is a great group of people, but their only drawback was that there are no Turtles,” Dominick joked. “And that moved the launch of Crew-5, it allowed Frank (Rubio) to close the gap of the continued presence of turtles in space between Crew-4 and Crew-6.”
Dominick came to the astronaut corps from the US Navy, where he served as a test pilot. He logged more than 1,600 flight hours aboard 28 aircraft.
“You watch the movies and think about flying at the edge of the envelope, at the edge of the envelope of the airplane, but a big part of test piloting is the planning, the engineering and working with the large groups of people that make it possible. And then every once in a while you do an edge-of-the-envelope test flight,” Dominick said.
Completing the crew is Roscosmos cosmonaut Alexander Grebenkin. Graduated from the Irkutsk Higher Military Aviation School, he studied engineering and repair of aircraft radios. He also studied radio communications and broadcasting at the Moscow Technical University of Communications and Informatics.
He began his cosmonaut training in 2018 and obtained the position of test cosmonaut in 2021.
“I would say that anyone who is doing anything in their life should try to absorb, to the best of their ability, whatever they are working on and be as multifaceted as possible,” Grebenkin said, speaking through a translator. “Everything I have learned has been very beneficial to me in my career as a cosmonaut. I would say that I was selected thanks to what I did before.”
Grebenkin said training at Crew Dragon was a challenge. He said the travel time between Russia and the United States for training also made it seem like a long process.
“We had to travel a lot and not only do you learn how to use the new vehicle, but you also meet a new training team and get used to a new training approach. So this is different,” she stated.
New SpaceX registrations
The launch of the Crew-8 mission will mark the fifth flight of the Crew Dragon Endeavor spacecraft. He is destined to become the flight leader of any Dragon spacecraft, whether crew or cargo version.
“We took a little more time to talk about the work we had done to make sure we were ready to fly that vehicle,” Steve Stich, manager of NASA’s Commercial Crew Program, said during a pre-launch teleconference. “In particular, we had several special themes related to the prop system.”
Stich said SpaceX replaced several valves to address corrosion previously seen on previous flights. Additionally, Bill Gerstenmaier, SpaceX’s vice president of build and flight reliability, said that having had the opportunity to carry 49 people on numerous cargo missions prior to this mission has taught them a lot.
Once Crew-8 launches, SpaceX will have sent a total of 53 people to orbit on 13 Dragon flights.
“We have the opportunity to experiment and see the hardware on other flights, so there is tremendous “The advantage is flying as frequently as we do and flying the variety of missions we can perform,” Gerstenmaier said. “It’s really nice to test some things on cargo vehicles and then see how they work and then make sure we’re getting the right performance we need for crew missions.”
Currently, Dragon vehicles are certified for up to five flights, but NASA and SpaceX are working to expand that to 15 missions.
“We may not get there in all systems. We’re starting that, we’re in the middle of doing that work. “We are in the middle of reviewing all of those components,” Stich said. “Actually, some are approved for 15 flights, others we are still working on, some of those components had to go through requalification to ensure they can reach 15 flights.”
A new Crew Dragon spacecraft is also currently being produced in Hawthorne, California. Stich said it would likely be ready to fly the Crew-10 mission in early 2025. Gerstenmaier added that SpaceX anticipates that vehicle will be ready for service in the fall of 2024.
“So when NASA wants to go ahead and use that vehicle, it will be available sometime in the fourth quarter of this year,” he said.
The first stage booster of this mission, tail number B1083, will be launched for the first time on this mission. You will land at Landing Zone 1 (LZ-1) at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station approximately 7.5 minutes after liftoff.
Those in the central Florida area may hear a sonic boom as the booster approaches for landing.
