SpaceX's Falcon 9 makes it to NASA's launch pad for Crew-5 mission after Hurricane Ian

SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket is standing tall at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center (KSC) for the Crew-5 mission which is slated for lift-off on October 5. Mounted with the Crew Dragon ‘Endurance’ spacecraft, the rocket will carry four astronauts to the International Space Station (ISS) for a six-month-long mission. According to SpaceX, the launch window opens at 9:30 pm IST and a backup opportunity is available on October 6 at 9:08 pm. Following their launch, the astronauts will dock with the ISS at 2:27 am the next day. 

Taking to Twitter, the Elon Musk-led firm shared a few pictures of the two-stage Falcon 9 attached to the launch tower at KSC’s Launch Complex 39A. Activities at the KSC have resumed after Hurricane Ian recently made landfall in Florida and caused serious damage in the state. The storm was also the reason why NASA delayed Crew-5’s launch twice and postponed the launch of the Artemis 1 Moon mission.

Among the members of the Crew-5 mission are two NASA astronauts– Josh Cassada and Nicole Mann– with one Russian cosmonaut–Anna Kikina– and one from Japan– Koichi Wakata. 

“During their time on the orbiting laboratory, the crew will conduct over 200 science experiments and technology demonstrations in areas such as human health and lunar fuel systems”, the company’s statement read. 

SpaceX says that the Dragon spacecraft being used for this mission previously supported Crew-3 which launched last November with three American astronauts Raja Chari, Tom Marshburn, Kayla Barron, and one European, Matthias Maurer. Earlier today, all of the Crew-5 astronauts arrived at the KSC to get familiar with the components of the Dragon spacecraft as part of their final preparations. These four astronauts will form the Expedition 68 group which also includes another NASA astronaut Frank Rubio and cosmonauts Sergey Prokopyev and Dmitri Petelin. The latter three launched to the ISS on September 21 from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan on a Soyuz rocket. 

The launches by the Russian space agency, Roscosmos and NASA with each other's astronauts are being carried out under the seat-swap agreement between the two parties. Owing to this agreement, Kikina will become the first Russian to board a commercial US spacecraft, the Crew Dragon in this case.