SpaceX and NASA are making final preparations for the next crewed launch to the International Space Station (ISS).
NASA astronauts Zena Cardman and Mike Fincke, along with Japanese astronaut Kimiya Yui and Russian cosmonaut Oleg Platonov, will head to the space station on July 31 aboard a SpaceX Crew Dragon capsule launched atop a Falcon 9 rocket.
This will be the first spaceflight for Cardman and Platonov, and the second spaceflight for Yui, while Fincke will be on his fourth voyage to space.
Crew-11 will be the 11th crew rotation mission of SpaceX’s human space transportation system and its 12th flight with astronauts, including the Demo-2 test flight, to the space station as part of NASA’s Commercial Crew Program.
The crew will spend at least six months aboard the space station where they’ll work on a range of scientific research projects and possibly participate in spacewalks outside the orbital facility.
A Falcon 9 rocket and Crew Dragon capsule carrying the crew will lift off from Launch Complex 39A (LC-39A) at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida at a targeted time of 12:09 p.m. ET on Thursday, July 31, though the livestream will begin at 8 a.m. to show the full launch preparations.
You can watch the broadcast on the video player at the top of this page. The same feed will also appear on SpaceX’s X account and also on NASA TV.
Inclement weather and technical issues could cause the launch to be rescheduled. We’ll update here if that happens, though you can also check SpaceX and NASA’s social channels for the very latest updates.
If you join the livestream from 8 a.m., you’ll see the astronauts making their way to the launchpad and entering the Crew Dragon capsule atop the Falcon 9 rocket.
Multiple cameras on the ground will follow the Falcon 9 as it leaves the launchpad, with cameras inside the capsule showing the astronauts as they begin their journey to the ISS. You’ll also hear commentary sharing insight into exactly what’s happening, plus the live audio feeds between Mission Control and the crew aboard the spacecraft.
After 13 suborbital test flights and more than $15 billion in development costs, SpaceX's Starship has finally reached orbit. The 407-foot megarocket, the most powerful ever built, lifted off from Starbase, Texas, on Monday and delivered its first real payload on it's 14th attempt. The celebration came with an asterisk, though, since SpaceX had to cut the planned 10-hour mission to roughly three hours.
https://twitter.com/SpaceX/status/2104601695711904180
SpaceX is finally ready to give Starship its biggest test yet. The company says the massive rocket's 14th test flight is scheduled for September 22, when it will attempt to put the upper stage into Earth orbit for the first time. The launch is currently pending regulatory approval, with a 75-minute window opening at 7:15 a.m. CT.
Starship has 26 Starlink satellites to deliver
For decades, humanity has looked up at the Moon and wondered what it would be like to live on it. Think sprawling cities, factories, research centers, and permanent human settlements. Unfortunately, there is one fairly fundamental problem with that vision.
A new study published in Frontiers in Space Technologies argues that even the Moon's potentially enormous reserves of frozen water may be nowhere near enough to support city-sized populations sustainably. Researchers Martin Elvis and Jonathan McDowell estimate that the permanently shadowed regions near the lunar poles could contain roughly one billion tons of water. It sounds like an extraordinary amount until you put a million thirsty humans next to it.