SpaceX Crew-4 Launches to Join Station Crew Tonight

The SpaceX Crew-4 astronauts liftoff from Kennedy Space Center in Florida aboard the Dragon Freedom crew ship atop the Falcon 9 rocket. CRedit: NASA/Joel Kowsky
The SpaceX Crew-4 astronauts liftoff from Kennedy Space Center in Florida aboard the Dragon Freedom crew ship atop the Falcon 9 rocket. CRedit: NASA/Joel Kowsky

NASA’s SpaceX Crew-4 astronauts are in orbit following their launch to the International Space Station at 3:52 a.m. EDT Wednesday, April 27, from Launch Complex 39A at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida. The international crew of astronauts will serve as the fourth commercial crew rotation mission aboard the space station.

A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket propelled the Dragon spacecraft into orbit carrying Mission Commander Kjell Lindgren, Pilot Bob Hines, and Mission Specialist Jessica Watkins, all NASA astronauts, and Mission Specialist Samantha Cristoforetti of ESA (European Space Agency). The crew will conduct a science expedition in microgravity aboard the space station.

“Liftoff! The past few days at Kennedy Space Center have been inspiring and busy with the return of the Axiom crew and now the successful launch of Crew-4 astronauts to the International Space Station,” said NASA Administrator Bill Nelson. “Aboard station, Kjell, Bob, Jessica, and Samantha will carry out research investigations that will help NASA prepare for longer duration stays on the Moon – and eventually Mars. These missions wouldn’t be possible without the dedicated NASA and SpaceX teams here on Earth. Godspeed, Crew-4!”

This Crew-4 mission is the first launch for Hines and Watkins, and the second flight to the station for Lindgren and Cristoforetti. It launched in a new Dragon spacecraft, named Freedom by the crew, and a Falcon 9 booster flying its fourth mission into space. This is the fifth SpaceX flight with NASA astronauts – including the Demo-2 test flight in 2020 to the space station – as part of the agency’s Commercial Crew Program.

During Dragon’s flight, SpaceX will monitor a series of automatic spacecraft maneuvers from its mission control center in Hawthorne, California, and NASA teams will monitor space station operations throughout the flight from the Mission Control Center at the agency’s Johnson Space Center in Houston.

Dragon will dock autonomously to the space-facing port of the station’s Harmony module around 8:15 p.m. Wednesday, April 27. NASA Television, the NASA app, and the agency’s website are providing ongoing live coverage through docking, and hatch opening. NASA also will cover the ceremony to welcome the crew aboard the orbital outpost about 2:40 a.m. on Thursday, April 28.

“NASA, SpaceX and our international partners have worked tirelessly to ensure that the International Space Station continues conducting important research in microgravity, and working on a whole host of activities that benefit humanity and opens up access to more people in space,” said Kathryn Lueders, associate administrator for NASA’s Space Operations Mission Directorate in Washington. “Crew-4’s launch, less than two days after the return of the first all-private mission to station, exemplifies the spirit and success of the Commercial Crew Program to help maximize use of low-Earth orbit for years to come, testing the technologies we need for the Artemis program and beyond.”

Lindgren, Hines, Watkins, and Cristoforetti will join the space station’s Expedition 67 crew of Raja Chari, Thomas Marshburn, and Kayla Barron, all NASA astronauts, Matthias Maurer of ESA, and cosmonauts Oleg Artemyev, Sergey Korsakov, and Denis Matveev of Roscosmos. For a short time, the number of crew aboard the space station will increase to 11 people until Crew-3 astronauts Chari, Marshburn, Barron, and Maurer return to Earth a few days later.

Crew-4 is the third commercial crew mission to fly an ESA astronaut.

“It gives me great pleasure to see the successful launch of Samantha Cristoforetti and her Crew-4 colleagues. Samantha will take over from Matthias Maurer and continue to represent Europe and support European experiments aboard the space station throughout her mission,” says ESA Director General Josef Aschbacher.

ESA Director of Human and Robotic Exploration David Parker adds, “Samantha has been an excellent role model – even more so as on the space station she will take on the role of USOS lead, responsible for operations within the U.S. Orbital Segment of the International Space Station, comprising of American, European, Japanese and Canadian modules and components.”

The Crew-4 astronauts will spend several months aboard the space station conducting new scientific research in areas such as materials science, health technologies, and plant science to prepare for human exploration beyond low-Earth orbit and to benefit life on Earth.

The Crew-4 mission continues NASA’s efforts to maintain American leadership in human spaceflight. Regular, long-duration commercial crew rotation missions enable NASA to continue the important research and technology investigations taking place aboard the station. Such research benefits people on Earth and lays the groundwork for future exploration of the Moon and Mars, starting with the agency’s Artemis missions, which includes landing the first woman and person of color on the lunar surface.

Lindgren is commander of the Dragon spacecraft and the Crew-4 mission. He is responsible for all phases of flight, from launch to re-entry, and will serve as an Expedition 67 flight engineer. This will be Lindgren’s second spaceflight since becoming an astronaut in 2009. In 2015, he spent 141 days aboard the orbital laboratory as a flight engineer for expeditions 44 and 45. Board certified in emergency medicine, he previously worked at NASA Johnson as a flight surgeon supporting space station training and operations and served as a deputy crew surgeon for space shuttle flight STS-130 and Expedition 24. Lindgren was born in Taipei, Taiwan, and spent most of his childhood in England before graduating from the U.S. Air Force Academy.

Hines is the pilot of the Dragon spacecraft and second in command for the mission. He is responsible for spacecraft systems and performance. Aboard the station, he will serve as an Expedition 67 flight engineer. This will be his first flight since his selection as an astronaut in 2017. Hines has served more than 22 years in the U.S. Air Force as a test pilot, fighter pilot, and instructor pilot. Before his selection in 2017, he was a research pilot at Johnson.

Watkins is a mission specialist for Crew-4 and will work closely with the commander and pilot to monitor the spacecraft during the dynamic launch and re-entry phases of flight. Once aboard the station, she will seve as a flight engineer for Expedition 67. Watkins grew up in Lafayette, Colorado, and studied geology at Stanford University, Palo Alto, California, and the University of California, Los Angeles. As a geologist, she studied the surface of Mars and was a science team collaborator at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, working on the Mars Science Laboratory rover Curiosity. She also was selected as a NASA astronaut in 2017, and this will be her first trip to space.

Cristoforetti will also serve as a mission specialist, working to monitor the Dragon spacecraft during the dynamic launch and re-entry phases of flight. She will serve as a flight engineer for Expedition 67. This will be her second trip to space following five months in 2015 as a flight engineer for Expeditions 42 and 43. Born in Milan, Italy, she was a fighter pilot in the Italian Air Force prior to being selected as an ESA astronaut in 2009. In 2019, she served as commander for NASA’s 23rd Extreme Environment Mission Operations mission on a 10-day stay in Aquarius, the world’s only undersea research station.

Learn more about NASA’s SpaceX Crew-4 and Commercial Crew Program at: https://www.nasa.gov/commercialcrew


Learn more about station activities by following the space station blog@space_station and @ISS_Research on Twitter, as well as the ISS Facebook and ISS Instagram accounts.

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Station Crew Looks to Crew-4 Arrival and Spacewalk This Week

The SpaceX Crew-4 astronauts (from left) with Mission Specialist Jessica Watkins, Pilot Robert Hines, Commander Kjell Lindgren and Mission Specialist Samantha Cristoforetti.
The SpaceX Crew-4 astronauts (from left) with Mission Specialist Jessica Watkins, Pilot Robert Hines, Commander Kjell Lindgren, and Mission Specialist Samantha Cristoforetti.

The Expedition 67 crew is gearing up for the arrival of the SpaceX Crew-4 mission following Sunday’s departure of the Axiom Mission 1 (Ax-1) crew. The International Space Station will also see another spacewalk to set up a new robotic arm.

The orbiting lab’s four astronauts from NASA and ESA (European Space Agency) slept in on Monday after seeing off the Ax-1 crew on Sunday evening. Commander Tom Marshburn and Flight Engineers Raja Chari, Kayla Barron and Matthias Maurer woke up just before lunch time on the orbital lab and worked on housecleaning duties while testing a garment that may prevent space-caused dizziness and blurred vision, also known as orthostatic intolerance.

The next mission, SpaceX Crew-4, to visit the space station is at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida. The four commercial crew astronauts are in final preparations for launch aboard the Dragon Freedom targeted for 3:52 a.m. EDT on Wednesday. Commander Kjell Lindgren, Pilot Robert Hines and Mission Specialists Jessica Watkins and Samantha Cristoforetti, would dock to the station several hours later to begin a four-and-a-half month stay on the orbiting lab.

Two cosmonauts are once again getting ready for a spacewalk to activate the European robotic arm (ERA) attached to the Nauka multipurpose laboratory module. Flight Engineer Oleg Artemyev and Denis Matveev are scheduled to exit the Poisk module’s airlock at 10:30 a.m. EDT on Thursday for a six-and-a-half hour excursion to set up the ERA for its first motion. The ERA is the station’s third robotic arm and will operate on the space lab’s Russian segment for both payload and spacewalk operations.

Roscosmos Flight Engineer Sergey Korsakov joined his cosmonaut crew mates today and reviewed the spacewalk tasks planned for Thursday. Korsakov will be inside the station assisting the spacewalkers and helping them in and out of their Orlan spacesuits. Artemyev and Matveev will release the ERA launch locks on Nauka, install new handrails, and monitor the robotic arm’s first motion.


Learn more about station activities by following the space station blog@space_station and @ISS_Research on Twitter, as well as the ISS Facebook and ISS Instagram accounts.

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NASA and SpaceX Adjust Agency’s Crew-4 Launch Date

Crew-4 astronauts
NASA’s SpaceX Crew-4 astronauts, from left, Jessica Watson, Bob Hines, and Kjell Lindgren, and ESA astronaut Samantha Cristoforetti stand outside Kennedy Space Center’s Neil Armstrong Operations and Checkout Building during a dry dress rehearsal on April 20, 2022. Photo credit: NASA/Kim Shiflett

NASA and SpaceX now are targeting no earlier than 3:52 a.m. EDT Wednesday, April 27, for launch of the agency’s SpaceX Crew-4 mission to the International Space Station from Launch Complex 39A at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida.

Teams decided to wave off a potential launch opportunity on April 26 until further into the week when space station positioning and orbital mechanics are more favorable. Crew-4 has another launch opportunity available Thursday, April 28, as weather continues to be a watch item heading into next week.

For a Crew-4 launch Wednesday, April 27, NASA will host a prelaunch news teleconference at approximately 9:30 p.m. Monday, April 25, with the following participants:

  • Steve Stich, manager, Commercial Crew Program, NASA Kennedy
  • Joel Montalbano, manager, International Space Station Program, NASA Johnson
  • Zeb Scoville, flight director, Flight Operations Directorate, Johnson
  • Jessica Jensen, vice president, customer operations and integration, SpaceX
  • Frank de Winne, manager, International Space Station Program, ESA
  • Arlena Moses, launch weather officer, U.S. Space Force 45th Weather Squadron

Media may ask questions via phone only. The teleconference audio will stream on nasa.gov/live. For the dial-in number and passcode, please contact the Kennedy newsroom no later than 8:30 p.m. on April 25 at: ksc-newsroom@mail.nasa.gov.

Additional adjustments to the Crew-4 launch date may be necessary in the event inclement weather prevents an on time splashdown of the Axiom Mission 1 (Ax-1) currently docked to the space station. Ax-1, the first all private astronaut mission to the station, now is targeted to undock from the orbital complex at 6:35 p.m. Saturday, April 23, and splashdown at 1:46 p.m. Sunday, April 24, off the coast of Florida. The Ax-1 crew and Dragon spacecraft remain healthy at station.

The Crew-4 flight will carry NASA astronauts Kjell Lindgren, mission commander, Robert Hines, pilot, and Jessica Watkins, mission specialist and ESA astronaut Samantha Cristoforetti, who will serve as a mission specialist, to the space station for a science expedition mission. The astronauts will fly a new Dragon spacecraft, named Freedom, atop a flight proven Falcon 9 rocket. Following docking of Crew-4, NASA’s SpaceX Crew-3 mission is expected to complete an approximate five-day handover with Crew-4 before undocking from the space station and returning to Earth.


Learn more about Crew-4 by exploring the Commercial Crew Press Kit.

Learn more about station activities by following the space station blog@space_station and @ISS_Research on Twitter, as well as the ISS Facebook and ISS Instagram accounts.

Get weekly video highlights at: http://jscfeatures.jsc.nasa.gov/videoupdate/

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