In less than an hour (12:34 a.m. EST), the SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket, with Endeavour atop, will lift off from Kennedy Space Center’s Launch Complex 39A in Florida for NASA’s Space X Crew-6 mission to the International Space Station.
The mission is the sixth crew rotation flight of a Dragon spacecraft, carrying NASA astronauts Stephen Bowen and Warren Hoburg, who will serve as spacecraft commander and pilot, respectively, and UAE (United Arab Emirates) astronaut Sultan Alneyadi and Roscosmos cosmonaut Andrey Fedyaev, who will serve as mission specialists.
The crew will dock Endeavour to the forward port on the space station’s Harmony module about 24.5 hours after liftoff. Dragon is scheduled to dock to the space station at approximately 1:17 a.m. EST on Friday, March 3.
Later this month, the four SpaceX Crew-5 astronauts currently on the space station will enter the Dragon Endurance spacecraft and undock from Harmony’s space-facing port for a parachute-assisted splashdown off the coast of Florida. Endurance Commander Nicole Mann, Pilot Josh Cassada, and mission specialists Koichi Wakata and Anna Kikina have been living and working on the space station since Oct. 6, 2022.
Crew-6 is scheduled for a long-duration stay of up to six months aboard the space station, conducting science and maintenance before returning to Earth. Follow along here on the blog or tune in to the live broadcast on NASA Television and the agency’s website.