NASA, SpaceX Crew-8 mission to launch Friday morning to space station
The mission is scheduled to lift off at 12:04 a.m. EST after those involved in the mission performed a full rehearsal Monday night and early Tuesday morning. If a delay occurs, a backup launch opportunity would be 11:45 p.m. Friday.
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Feb. 29 (UPI) -- The three American astronauts and one Russian cosmonaut who comprise NASA's next crewed mission to the International Space Station are scheduled to lift off very early Friday morning.
Crew-8 will use the SpaceX Dragon capsule Endeavour atop one of the company's Falcon 9 rockets to lift off from Pad 39A at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida and head northeast.
The mission is scheduled to lift off at 12:04 a.m. EST after those involved in the mission performed a full rehearsal Monday night and early Tuesday morning. If a delay occurs, a backup launch opportunity would be 11:45 p.m. Friday.
The Space Force 45th Weather Squadron said Wednesday that there's an 85% chance for good conditions at launch time, with isolated showers the biggest concern.
The Space Force 45th Weather Squadron said Wednesday that there's an 85% chance for good conditions at launch time, with isolated showers the biggest concern.
"Coming out here to the Cape, every time, I'm a kid in a candy store," the U.S. Navy test pilot told reporters Sunday.
"It's an incredible time to be involved in spaceflight. Who would've thought five or six years ago that this would be the fifth flight of Endeavour that we get to go on?
"Who would've thought five or six years ago that the competition for launch or the constraint to launch would be a launch pad? We delayed our launch a few days because there's stiff competition to get out there to 39A. It's not a rocket constraint, it's a pad constraint."
Barratt will return to the space station for the third time, after serving as the flight engineer for Expeditions 19 and 20 and performing two spacewalks.
The resident of Camas, Wash., has a medical degree from Northwestern University in Chicago and spent nine years as a NASA flight surgeon and project physician before becoming an astronaut in 2000.
Epps will make her first trip to the space station. Born in Syracuse, N.Y., she worked for the Central Intelligence Agency before being chosen in 2009 to become an astronaut.
NASA reassigned Epps to the current mission after she spent time with the agency's Boeing Starliner-1 mission, which is not scheduled to launch until late April at the earliest.
Grebenkin also will make his first trip to the space station, after graduating from Moscow Technical University of Communications with a degree in radio communications, broadcasting and television.
Before that, he served in technical and operational units of the Russian Air Force, after focusing on repairing aircraft radio navigation systems in school.
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