There is a 95 percent chance of favourable weather conditions for the Crew-6 launch, NASA officials say.
It’s all systems go for NASA’s SpaceX Crew-6 mission to the International Space Station (ISS) on Thursday. Emirati astronaut Sultan Al Neyadi and his three crewmates are expected to launch to space at 9:34am UAE time from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida, onboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket and Dragon spacecraft.
Watch the live coverage of the launch of the first Arab long-duration astronaut mission:
According to NASA, the mission team has completed a launch readiness review, weather briefing, and mission management meeting on the eve of the mission’s launch. There is a 95 percent chance of favourable weather conditions for the Crew-6 launch, weather officials with Cape Canaveral Space Force Station’s 45th Weather Squadron revealed.
“Conditions along the Dragon ascent corridor are within acceptable limits, but will remain a watch item for Thursday’s attempt,” NASA said in a blog post.
The mission was supposed to launch to space 27 February, but NASA stood down less than three minutes before lift-off because of a technical issue linked to the ignition fluid used to start the Falcon 9’s nine first stage kerosene/liquid oxygen Merlin engines.
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“I promised my kids to return soon and I didn’t mean this soon!” Al Neyadi joked after Monday’s launch attempt was scrubbed by NASA. “Anyway, our crew is safe and our spirits are high. A launch scrub is one of the things that we are trained to do, as crew safety is always a priority.”
The Crew-6 mission includes NASA astronauts Stephen Bowen, the mission commander, and Warren Hoburg, the pilot, and Roscosmos cosmonaut Andrey Fedyaev, who along Al Neyadi is a mission specialist. The crew’s Dragon spacecraft named Endeavour previously flew NASA’s SpaceX Demo-2, NASA’s SpaceX Crew-2, and Axiom Mission 1 astronauts.
The journey is expected to last around 24.5 hours. According to NASA, the crew will dock to the space-facing port of the microgravity laboratory’s Harmony module about 10:17am UAE time on Friday, 3 March. The hatch is expected to open at around 12:27pm, followed by the welcome ceremony about 12:40pm.
Al Neyadi will spend six months on the ISS, making him the first Arab astronaut to carry out a long-duration space mission. The Emirati astronaut will conduct various science experiments in collaboration with different UAE universities.
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Image source Mohamed Bin Rashid Space Center
