NASA’s SpaceX Demo-2 astronauts Robert Behnken and Douglas Hurley are beginning a series of communications checks – “comm checks” – with various key members of the launch and mission teams, including SpaceX Launch Director Mike Taylor and Chief Engineer Bala Ramamurthy, both in Firing Room 4 in Kennedy’s Launch Control Center; and the SpaceX Crew Operations and Resources Engineer (CORE).
There will be several COREs communicating with the crew throughout the mission, including Jay Aranha, SpaceX CORE for ingress and ascent; Anna Menon, SpaceX CORE for Crew Dragon’s approach to and departure from the International Space Station; Laura Crabtree, the CORE for free flight; and Mike Heiman, the SpaceX CORE for the crew’s return to Earth. The CORE engineers are located at SpaceX Mission Control in Hawthorne, California.