Category: SpaceX

The SpaceX Crew Dragon spacecraft carrying NASA astronauts Michael Hopkins, Victor Glover, and Shannon Walker, along with Soichi Noguchi of the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency on their way to the International Space Station has safely reached orbit, and the nosecone has been opened.

At 9:30 p.m., NASA will host a postlaunch news conference from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center. Participants in the briefing will be:

• NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine
• Kathy Lueders, associate administrator for human exploration and operations, NASA Headquarters
• Hiroshi Sasaki, vice president and director general, JAXA’s Human Spaceflight Technology Directorate
• Steve Dickson, administrator, Federal Aviation Administration
• Gwynne Shotwell, president and chief operating officer, SpaceX

NASA Television and the agency’s website will air the news conference. Mission commentary will switch to NASA TV’s Media Channel.

Follow along with mission activities and get more information at: https://blogs.nasa.gov/spacestation/. Learn more about commercial crew and space station activities by following @Commercial_Crew, @space_station, and @ISS_Research on Twitter as well as the Commercial Crew Facebook, ISS Facebook and ISS Instagram accounts.

Resilience has separated from the second stage.

The spacecraft is traveling at approximately 27,000 kilometers per hour.

Stage 1 of the rocket completed its descent and landed on SpaceX’s drone ship.

Shutdown of the second stage engine occurs right on time. “A nominal orbit insertion,” which are great words to hear.

The second stage engine continues to burn. About eight minutes into flight, all is well.

The call came in from Crew-1 Commander Mike Hopkins that trajectory is nominal. The first stage has started its descent.

The rocket has reached first stage main engine cutoff (MECO). The first and second stages have separated.

Max Q, or the moment of peak mechanical stress on the rocket, has been reached.