Credits: SpaceX
NASA astronauts Michael Hopkins, Victor Glover, and Shannon Walker, along with Soichi Noguchi of the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA), entered their official quarantine period beginning Saturday, Oct. 31, in preparation for their flight to the International Space Station on NASA’s SpaceX Crew-1 mission. They will lift off at 7:49 p.m. EST Saturday, Nov. 14 aboard a SpaceX Crew Dragon carried by the company’s Falcon 9 rocket from the agency’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida.
For crews preparing to launch, “flight crew health stabilization” is a routine part of the final preparations for all missions to the space station. Spending the final two weeks before liftoff in quarantine will help ensure the Crew-1 crew is healthy, protecting themselves and the astronauts already on the space station.
If they are able to maintain quarantine conditions at home, crew members can choose to quarantine from there until they travel to Kennedy. If they are unable to maintain quarantine conditions at home — for example, if a household member can’t maintain quarantine because of job or school requirements — they have the option of living in the Astronaut Quarantine Facility at Johnson Space Center until they leave for Kennedy.
Some additional safeguards have been added because of the coronavirus. Anyone who will come on site or interact with the crew during the quarantine period, as well as any VIPs, will be screened for temperature and symptoms. Hopkins, Glover, Walker, and Noguchi, as well as those in direct, close contact with the crew, will be tested twice for the virus as a precaution.
Crew-1 astronauts will become the first crew to fly a full-duration mission to the space station on Crew Dragon for a six-month stay on the orbiting laboratory. They are scheduled to arrive at the space station Sunday, Nov. 15, to join NASA astronaut Kate Rubins, as well as Expedition 64 commander Sergey Ryzhikov and flight engineer Sergey Kud-Sverchkov, cosmonauts of the Russian space agency Roscosmos.
For the first time, the space station’s long-duration crew will expand to seven people with Expedition 64, increasing the amount of crew time available for research.
More details about the mission and NASA’s Commercial Crew Program can be found in the press kit online and by following the commercial crew blog, @commercial_crew and commercial crew on Facebook.