28.10.2021

Matthias Maurer talks science and spacewalks on the space station

European Space Agency astronaut Matthias Maurer during training at SpaceX. Credit: SpaceX

Matthias Maurer’s last name in German means brick layer. Naturally, Maurer says, that means he has been assigned to perform an experiment with concrete during his six-month stint on the International Space Station.

Maurer, 51, is preparing to launch on SpaceX’s next crew mission to the space station. The European Space Agency astronaut is set to head into orbit for the first time.

The mission will make Maurer the 600th person to fly into space since the dawn of the Space Age. He’s eager to start on his science mission on the space station, where he will operate facilities inside the European Columbus lab module and support research in other segments of the outpost.

Born in the German state of Saarland, Maurer earned degrees in materials technology and materials science. He received a doctorate in materials science engineering from the Technical University of Aachen, Germany, and has a master’s degree in economics for engineers from the Open University in Hagen, Germany.

While completing his studies, Maurer researched high-temperature metals and served as a paramedic. He worked four years for an international medical company, researching new materials for disposable medical equipment, such as blood filters used in dialysis.

In a pre-flight interview with Spaceflight Now, Maurer said his education and research experience have prepared him for work on the space station.

“Some of these topics are actually the research areas that we have on the International Space Station,” he said. “We have a lot of materials science on the space station. We have several furnaces, but we also work in the domain of life sciences. That’s why I think I bring a lot of expert knowledge to run a lot of these experiments that have on the space station.”

Maurer will launch on SpaceX’s Crew Dragon Endurance spacecraft on NASA’s Crew-3 mission. NASA astronaut Raja Chari commands the flight. Pilot Tom Marshburn and NASA mission specialist Kayla Barron will also be on-board for the six-month expedition on the space station.

Launch is scheduled for 2:21 a.m. EDT (0621 GMT) Sunday from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida.

Maurer’s crewmates describe him as inventive and innovative. He applied to join ESA’s astronaut class of 2009 and passed all tests to join the group, but he did not make the final cut.

Instead, he joined ESA as a crew support engineer at the European Astronaut Center in Cologne, Germany. He participated in an ESA-led cave expedition in 2014, and officially joined ESA’s astronaut corps in 2015.

Before his assignment to the Crew-3 mission, Maurer was part of the first group of foreign astronauts to join a Chinese astronaut training program in 2017. He also took language lessons in Chinese.

After waiting more than a decade since he first applied to be an ESA astronaut, Maurer is days away from finally rocketing into orbit. A world-class science lab awaits him more than 250 miles (400 kilometers) above Earth.

“I like the metals, and melting metals,” Maurer said. “We have the electromagnetic levitating furnace in the European module, where we can heat up metal samples, have them floating — -so no contact with any boundaries where we could have artifacts — and we can heat them up, see the viscosity, measure all the different parameters, and then cool them.

“And all these parameters we only can gain in zero gravity, and then we can feed it into computer simulations which are applicable for applications on the ground when you for example want to produce a new car engine, or the turbine blade for a jet engine on a plane,” Maurer said.

He said the materials science research program on the space station has been “highly successful” with solid demand from investigators to send their experiments to the orbiting lab.

There are also biological experiments probing how the human body changes in microgravity, including the eyes.

“One of the devices that we’re flying now is taking video images of the eye, and applying artificial intelligence for the image analysis,” Maurer said. “Ground testing has proven that with such a quite simple setup, like an iPhone, for example, and a lens that we put on there and the right software, you can achieve almost better results than a specialist …  can do just by looking into your eye.”

Similar technology could be applied to help patients on the ground that don’t have easy access to an eye clinic.

This diagram shows the location of the Nauka laboratory module and the European Robotic Arm at the International Space Station. Credit: ESA

“In German, my last name Maurer means brick layer,” Maurer said. “As a brick layer, you should do something with construction, so I will have an experiment with concrete. We will mix some cement on the space station and see how it hardens.”

Concrete is one of the most common ingredients in construction, but scientists still have questions about how it hardens over time, particularly in the absence of gravity or in a low-gravity environment. A future base on the moon or Mars might use concrete, so scientists want to know how it behaves in space.

“It actually contributes a lot of science,” Maurer said.

Maurer is certified to go outside the space station on spacewalks in either U.S. spacesuits — called Extravehicular Mobility Units — or Russian Orlan spacesuits.

If the crew’s schedule remains unchanged, Maurer will go outside the station in an Orlan spacesuit with a Russian cosmonaut early next year. The duo will activate the European Robotic Arm positioned outside Russia’s Nauka laboratory module, which arrived at the station in July.

“We need to remove the transport fixture and install video cameras, which were not installed during the transport,” Maurer said.

Quelle: SN

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German astronaut to become 600th person to fly into space

Astronauts Raja Chari, Tom Marshburn, Matthias Maurer, and Kayla Barron flew from their home base in Houston to NASA’s Kennedy Space Center Tuesday to begin their final few days of launch preparations before blasting off on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket for the International Space Station Sunday.

Three of the crew members — Chari, Maurer, and Barron — are first-time space fliers. Maurer, a German-born European Space Agency astronaut, will be the 600th person to fly into space, according to NASA statistics.

Chari will be the 599th, and Barron will be the 601st person to reach space since 1961, when Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin launched into orbit at the beginning of the Space Age.

“I was the lucky one that got the round number, but we will all have fun in space,” Maurer said Tuesday after arriving at Kennedy aboard a NASA Gulfstream jet.

“Being No. 600 in 60 years, it makes 10 persons per year,” Maurer said. “But I think in a very few years we will see an exponential rise of that because now we’re entering the era of commercial spaceflight, and all the suborbital flights, they also count in the statistics.”

NASA’s spaceflight statistics include every person who has reached an altitude of at least 50 miles (80 kilometers), the boundary of space also recognized by the Federal Aviation Administration and the U.S. military. The Kármán line at an altitude of 62 miles (100 kilometers) is where space begins according to the Fédération Aéronautique International.

The FAA has awarded commercial astronaut wings to pilots and crew of Virgin Galactic’s SpaceShipTwo rocket plane, which flies above the 50-mile boundary but does not reach the internationally-recognized 62-mile threshold.

Twenty people have joined the list of space fliers — under the U.S. government definition — since the beginning of this year. Seventeen of those are not professional astronauts or cosmonauts, with most of them flying as passengers on suborbital trips on Virgin Galactic or Blue Origin vehicles.

The arrival of the Crew-3 astronauts at Kennedy Space Center marks the start of a busy few days leading up t0 liftoff Sunday.

“We are super excited to be here at Kennedy,” said Chari, commander of the Crew-3 mission.

“We got to see the pad flying in, which was amazing,” he said. “The last few days have been full of reviews. We’ve had the benefit of getting to focus on training while our leadership teams have been making tough decisions and getting the vehicle ready … to make it safe for us to fly. And we’re ready to go.”

The only technical issue under review by NASA and SpaceX engineers involves the toilet on the Crew Dragon spacecraft. The waste system malfunctioned on the most recent Dragon crew mission last month, when SpaceX launched four private citizens into orbit on the first-of-its-kind all-commercial Inspiration4 mission.

A glued joint in a line that carries urine into the spacecraft’s waste tank became disconnected during the three-day flight. SpaceX welded the joint in the waste system on the Dragon spacecraft for the Crew-3 mission to avoid having the same problem.

NASA teams are reviewing the modification before formally giving the go-ahead for the Crew-3 launch this weekend. Agency officials are also studying the condition of the toilet system on the Crew Dragon spacecraft currently docked at the space station, which will be used by four astronauts to return to Earth next week.

Chari and his crewmates will spend this week reviewing flight plans, rehearsing for launch day, and taking some time off before their scheduled blastoff to the International Space Station at 2:21 a.m. EDT (0621 GMT) Sunday from pad 39A.

Assuming an on-time launch, the Crew Dragon Endurance spacecraft — the newest member of SpaceX’s crew capsule fleet — will dock at the station around 12:10 a.m. EDT (0410 GMT) Monday.

The Crew-3 astronauts will spend six months at the space station, performing experiments and maintaining the complex as part of a seven-person long duration crew. Three other crew members launched on a Russian Soyuz spacecraft.

The new crew will spend a few days getting briefings and updates from the outgoing Crew-2 astronauts, who arrived at the space station in April on SpaceX’s Crew Dragon Endeavour spacecraft. The Crew-2 mission will end Nov. 4 or 5 with an undocking from the station and a splashdown off the coast of Florida.

Quelle: SN

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Update: 30.10.2021

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Despite storms, weather looks good for SpaceX and NASA launch of astronauts from Florida

SpaceX test fires a Falcon 9 rocket and Crew Dragon capsule at Kennedy Space Center ahead of the Crew-3 mission on Thursday, Oct. 28, 2021.   

Despite overcast skies and storms lingering over the Space Coast over the last few days, the forecast for NASA and SpaceX's next crewed mission this weekend looks favorable.

Space Force forecasters on Thursday said conditions at Kennedy Space Center should be 80% "go" for liftoff at 2:21 a.m. Sunday, the opening of an instantaneous window at pad 39A. A storm system lingering over Florida this week should move far enough away by then to mostly clear the skies for Falcon 9 and Crew Dragon.

"The parent storm system will become increasingly large and slow to move into the northeastern U.S., keeping conditions unsettled and showery across the spaceport through the first part of Saturday," Space Launch Delta 45 forecasters said. "As the low gets farther away from Florida, drier conditions will filter in leading to favorable launch conditions for the initial launch opportunity."

Flight through precipitation and the possible presence of cumulus clouds above the pad were listed as the primary concerns. But that's just liftoff weather – forecasters said upper-level winds should be "low risk" but conditions through the launch corridor could be "high risk."

During crewed missions, Crew Dragon can automatically abort and propel itself away from the rocket in the event of an emergency. This means weather conditions have to also be favorable along the flightpath if the capsule has to splash down in the Atlantic Ocean with the crew.

Yet another complicating factor is booster recovery: about eight minutes after liftoff, Falcon 9's first stage will target a drone ship landing in the Atlantic. Conditions near the ship have to be favorable, too, or SpaceX could opt to scrub the launch.

In the event of a scrub due to weather or technical issues, teams will target 1:10 a.m. Wednesday for the next attempt to fly to the International Space Station. Conditions during that window are also expected to be 80% "go."

Early Thursday, meanwhile, SpaceX teams at pad 39A fueled and test fired the rocket and its Merlin main engines. Just before 2 a.m., the company confirmed all was well after a review of the data.

The Halloween launch, labeled Crew-3, will take NASA's Kayla Barron, Raja Chari, and Thomas Marshburn to the ISS on a six-month mission focused on science experiments and station maintenance. German astronaut Matthias Maurer joins on behalf of the European Space Agency.

If all goes well and Crew Dragon confirms separation from the second stage and good power coming in from the solar arrays, the spacecraft will take about a day to reach the ISS.

This marks SpaceX's fourth crewed mission for NASA and fifth overall when including private spaceflight. Both SpaceX and Boeing were selected under multibillion-dollar contracts to deliver astronauts to the ISS from U.S. soil, a capability lost with the 2011 retirement of the space shuttle. Boeing's Starliner capsule still has not finished all the test flights needed before launching humans.

Quelle: Florida Today

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Update: 11:30 MESZ

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NASA verschiebt Matthias Maurers Flug zur ISS

Matthias Maurers Flug zur Internationalen Raumstation ISS ist auf Mittwoch verschoben worden. Der Grund ist ein Sturm über dem Atlantik, wie die NASA mitteilt.

Der Erstflug des deutschen Astronauten Matthias Maurer zur Internationalen Raumstation ISS findet nicht wie geplant am Sonntag statt. Die US-Raumfahrtbehörde NASA verschob den Termin wegen eines Sturms auf Mittwoch, den 3. November. Der Start wird für 6.10 Uhr Mitteleuropäischer Zeit anvisiert. 

Eigentlich war geplant, dass am Sonntag erstmals seit drei Jahren mit Maurer wieder ein deutscher Astronaut ins All fliegt. Gemeinsam mit den NASA-Kollegen Thomas Marshburn, Raja Chari und Kayla Barron sollte der 51-jährige Saarländer vom Weltraumbahnhof Cape Canaveral in Florida aus zur Internationalen Raumstation ISS starten. 

Maurer wäre der vierte Deutsche auf der ISS

Maurer wäre der zwölfte Deutsche im All – und der vierte Deutsche auf der ISS. Gemeinsam mit Marshburn, Chari und Barron bildet der Astronaut die "Crew-3". Transportiert werden die Vier im "Crew Dragon" der Raumfahrtfirma SpaceX von Elon Musk. Auf der ISS soll Maurer in rund 400 Kilometern Höhe etwa sechs Monate lang zahlreiche Experimente durchführen und auch einen Außeneinsatz absolvieren.

Noch in der Nacht zu Samstag waren zwar günstige Wetterbedingungen für den Start vorhergesagt worden. Das galt aber nur für den eigentlichen Ort des Startes an der Ostküste des US-Bundesstaates Florida. Sorgen bereiten der NASA die Wetterbedingungen im weiteren Verlauf der Wegstrecke des Flugs. Die Bedingungen sollten sich zum 3. November bessern, so die US-Raumfahrtbehörde. Der Starttermin war bereits um einen Tag nach hinten verschoben worden, um mehr Zeit für die Vorbereitung zu haben.

Quelle: t-online

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NASA, SpaceX Adjust Next Space Station Crew Rotation Launch Date

NASA and SpaceX now are targeting 1:10 a.m. EDT Wednesday, Nov. 3, for the agency’s Crew-3 launch to the International Space Station due to a large storm system meandering across the Ohio Valley and through northeastern United States this weekend, elevating winds and waves in the Atlantic Ocean along the Crew Dragon flight path for the Oct. 31 launch attempt.

Weather conditions along the ascent corridor are expected to improve for a Nov. 3 launch attempt, and the 45th Weather Squadron forecast predicts an 80% chance of favorable weather conditions at the launch site.

NASA astronauts Raja Chari, mission commander, Tom Marshburn, pilot, and Kayla Barron, mission specialist and ESA (European Space Agency) astronaut Matthias Maurer, also a mission specialist, will launch on the SpaceX Crew Dragon spacecraft and Falcon 9 rocket from Launch Complex 39A at the agency’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida.

Crew-3 astronauts are scheduled for a long-duration science mission aboard the orbiting laboratory, living and working as part of what is expected to be a seven-member crew.

Launch Nov. 3 would have Crew-3 arriving at the space station later the same day about 11 p.m. Wednesday, Nov. 3, for a short handover with the astronauts that flew to the station as part of the agency’s SpaceX Crew-2 mission.

Crew-2 NASA astronauts Shane Kimbrough and Megan McArthur, JAXA (Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency) astronaut Akihiko Hoshide, and ESA astronaut Thomas Pesquet are currently targeting return in early November. Crew-3 astronauts are set to return in late April 2022.

Quelle: NASA

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Kayla Barron, a pioneering submarine officer, is ready for her first flight to space

NASA astronaut Kayla Barron was one of the first women to serve as a submarine officer in the U.S. Navy. Now she’s ready to apply her experience under the waves to a flight above the atmosphere on the International Space Station.

Barron is one of four astronauts preparing for launch as soon as Sunday on SpaceX’s Crew Dragon Endurance spacecraft. Instead of going to sea for a months-long patrol, she is trained to live and work for a half-year in orbit, more than 250 miles above Earth.

“There is no better preparation for spaceflight than serving aboard a submarine,” Barron said in a pre-flight interview with Spaceflight Now.

The 34-year-old naval officer was born in Idaho and graduated high school in Richland, Washington. She said the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, which happened when she was 14, “really cemented by desire to serve.

“It came into focus that the best fit for me was to join the Navy and go to the Naval Academy,” she said.

“I knew that I wanted to study engineering,” she said. “I was hoping I’d be able to run cross country and track, and I knew especially that I wanted to surround myself with people who would really challenge me to develop my character, develop as a leader, and prepare to step into some pretty big leadership roles as a young leader after graduation.”

She earned a bachelor’s degree in systems engineering from the Naval Academy in 2010, and a master’s degree in nuclear engineering from Cambridge University in England in 2011, focusing on research to model the fuel cycle for a next-generation nuclear reactor.

The Navy announced in 2010 that it would begin permitting women to serve on submarines, one of the final naval assignments still restricted to only men. The policy change happened just as Barron was about to graduate from the Naval Academy.

“During my senior year, they changed the policy and allowed women to enter the submarine force for the first time,” Barron said. “So I was in the right place at the right time to do the right thing for me, and was able to join the submarine force and serve there before applying to be an astronaut, and ending up where I am today.”

She was assigned to the USS Maine, a ballistic missile submarine. Barron qualified as a submarine warfare officer for three patrols aboard the Maine.

Barron said she didn’t have a lifelong dream of becoming an astronaut. Her experience on submarines inspired her to apply to join NASA’s astronaut corps.

“It was actually the parallels between serving aboard a submarine and working in space that inspired me to want to apply (to NASA) in the first place,” she said. “I didn’t grow up imagining myself able to become an astronaut. It was something that I was aware of, but not something I ever really conceived of as a possibility for me until I served aboard a submarine.”

She applied to join NASA’s astronaut corps and was selected as a member of the astronaut class of 2017. Her first spaceflight assignment is as a mission specialist on the Crew-3 mission, SpaceX’s third crew rotation flight to the International Space Station.

Raja Chari, commander of the Crew-3 mission, is a classmate of Barron’s from the 2017 astronaut group. Pilot Tom Marshburn, a veteran of two previous spaceflights, and European Space Agency astronaut Matthias Maurer round out the crew.

When she straps in for launch, it will be the first time she has ever experienced blastoff of a large rocket in person.

“It’s kind of a great failure of mine that I haven’t found myself at the Cape or in Russia for a launch yet,” Barron said. “My very first rocket launch will be riding that same rocket to space.”

Barron and her crewmates are scheduled to return to Earth next April. Her next assignment will be to assist in development of NASA’s Artemis program, which aims to return astronauts to the surface of the moon some time in the 2020s.

NASA announced a cadre of 18 astronauts last year who will be eligible for assignments to future moon missions. Barron is a member of the Artemis cadre.

“Who wouldn’t love to fly to the moon one day?” she said.

NASA’s first Artemis test flight, designed Artemis 1, is scheduled for launch no earlier than February on an unpiloted trip around the moon and back to Earth. The mission will verify NASA’s Space Launch System heavy-lift rocket and Orion crew capsule are ready to ferry people to the moon, beginning with the Artemis 2 mission scheduled in late 2023.

Artemis 2 will not land astronauts on the moon, but it will carry a crew of four around the far side of the moon, reaching distances from Earth farther than any human has ever traveled.

Barron will help oversee work on the International Space Station to pave the way for moon missions.

“We’re doing a lot of amazing stuff on ISS that will contribute to lunar missions,” she said. “We’re doing some technology demonstrations of environmental control and life support, so really trying to understand how we can reclaim all the water and turn it back into drinking water, how we can generate oxygen.

“We’ve had these systems aboard the space station for 20 years, but what we’re trying to understand is how to improve their reliability and make them easier to maintain, because now, if something breaks, we have these cargo resupply missions coming to the space station every couple of months,” she said. “So we can get new hardware to replace things, but we’re not going to have that luxury, really, on the moon or especially on a trip to Mars.

“And then we’re trying to do a lot of medical research to understand how the space environment affects the human body,” Barron said. “What it takes to stay healthy on the mission to the moon, or eventually a two-to-three year round trip to Mars is a totally different ball game. So there’s a lot of awesome research going on that will inform how we stay healthy on those missions.”

Quelle: SN

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Update: 2.11.2021

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NASA’s SpaceX Crew-3 Launch Delayed from Nov. 3

NASA is delaying the upcoming launch of the agency’s SpaceX Crew-3 mission due to a minor medical issue involving one of its crew members. The issue is not a medical emergency and not related to COVID-19. The launch to the International Space Station was planned for Wednesday, Nov. 3.

The agency takes every effort to protect the crew prior to its launch through a health stabilization plan. Crew-3 astronauts will remain in quarantine at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida while preparing for their launch.

Teams will continue to monitor crew health as they evaluate potential launch opportunities at the end of the week. The earliest possible opportunity for launch is 11:36 p.m. EDT Saturday, Nov. 6.

The SpaceX Crew Dragon spacecraft and Falcon 9 rocket are in good shape and will remain at Launch Complex 39A at Kennedy.

The Crew-3 flight will carry NASA astronauts Raja Chari, mission commander; Tom Marshburn, pilot; and Kayla Barron, mission specialist; as well as ESA (European Space Agency) astronaut Matthias Maurer, who will serve as a mission specialist, to the space station for a six-month science mission, staying aboard until late April 2022.

This is the third crew rotation mission with astronauts on the SpaceX Crew Dragon spacecraft and the fourth flight with astronauts, including the Demo-2 test flight, as part of the agency’s Commercial Crew Program.

NASA also will continue to evaluate dates for a return to Earth for NASA’s SpaceX Crew-2 mission with NASA astronauts Shane Kimbrough and Megan McArthur, JAXA (Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency) astronaut Akihiko Hoshide, and ESA (European Space Agency) astronaut Thomas Pesquet.

Mission teams are reviewing options including both direct and indirect handovers for the upcoming crew rotation at the microgravity laboratory. Teams will review all options for safely launching and returning crew members and continue the agency’s important work on the International Space Station.

Quelle: NASA

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Update: 9.11.2021

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CREW-3 MISSION

SpaceX and NASA are targeting as soon as Wednesday November 10 for Falcon 9’s launch of Dragon’s third long-duration crew mission (Crew-3) to the International Space Station (ISS) from historic Launch Complex 39A (LC-39A) at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida. The instantaneous launch window opens at 9:03 p.m. EST, or 2:03 UTC on November 11, with a backup opportunity available on Thursday, November 11 at 8:40 p.m. EST, or 1:40 UTC on November 12.

Following stage separation, Falcon 9’s first stage will land on the “Just Read the Instructions” droneship stationed in the Atlantic Ocean.

During the Crew-3 mission, NASA astronauts Raja Chari, Tom Marshburn, Kayla Barron, and European Space Agency (ESA) astronaut Matthias Maurer will fly aboard the Dragon spacecraft, marking the fifth human spaceflight mission SpaceX has launched since May 2020.

The webcast for the Crew-3 mission will go live about 4 hours before liftoff.

Quelle: SpaceX

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Update: 10.11.2021 / 20:30 MEZ

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It's Launch Day! Here's what you need to know about tonight's NASA, SpaceX Crew-3 liftoff

It's Launch Day!

Here's what you need to know for tonight's the NASA and SpaceX Crew-3 launch from Kennedy Space Center's Launch Pad 39A:

• Liftoff is set for 9:03 p.m. 

• Weather forecast is 80% "go" at the launch pad.  

•  A SpaceX Crew Dragon capsule sits atop a Falcon 9 rocket poised to carry the Crew-3 expedition to the International Space Station.

•  Onboard the rocket will be Crew-3 mission members NASA astronauts Kayla Barron, Raja Chari, Thomas Marshburn, and ESA's Matthias Maurer.

• The brand new Crew Dragon capsule is named "Endurance."

• The instantaneous launch means the Falcon 9 must launch at exactly 9:03 p.m. to catch up with the International Space Station.

• The crew is slated to arrive at the ISS about 24 hours after liftoff. Their mission will last six months and include science experiments, spacewalks, and maintaining the football field-sized station.

Quelle: Florida Today

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Coverage Update for NASA’s SpaceX Crew-3 Briefings, Events, Broadcasts

NASA will provide updated coverage of the upcoming launch and docking activities for the agency’s SpaceX Crew-3 mission, which will carry astronauts to the International Space Station.

This mission marks the third time the SpaceX Crew Dragon spacecraft has transported a crew rotation of astronauts to the station as part of NASA’s Commercial Crew Program. It will be the spacecraft’s fourth flight for the program with astronauts, including the Demo-2 test flight.

The launch now is targeted for no earlier than 9:03 p.m. EST Wednesday, Nov. 10, on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from Launch Complex 39A at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida. The launch follows a successful return of the agency’s SpaceX Crew-2 mission.

The Crew Dragon Endurance is scheduled to dock to the space station at 7:10 p.m. Thursday, Nov. 11. Launch and docking coverage will air live on NASA Television, the NASA app, and the agency’s website.

The Crew-3 flight will carry NASA astronauts Raja Chari, mission commander; Tom Marshburn, pilot; and Kayla Barron, mission specialist; as well as ESA (European Space Agency) astronaut Matthias Maurer, who will serve as a mission specialist, to the space station for a six-month science mission.

The deadline has passed for media accreditation for in-person coverage of this launch. Due to the ongoing coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic, the Kennedy Press Site facilities remains closed for the protection of Kennedy employees and journalists except for limited number of media who have already been notified. More information about media accreditation is available by emailing: ksc-media-accreditat@mail.nasa.gov.

All media participation in the following news conference will be remote.

NASA’s SpaceX Crew-3 mission coverage is as follows (all times Eastern):

Today, Tuesday, Nov. 9

11 p.m. – Crew-3 Prelaunch News Teleconference with the following participants:

• Steve Stich, manager, Commercial Crew Program, NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston
• Joel Montalbano, manager, International Space Station Program, NASA Johnson
• Holly Ridings, chief flight director, Flight Operations Directorate, Johnson
• William Gerstenmaier, vice president, Build and Flight Reliability, SpaceX

Media wishing to participate in the preview briefing by telephone must contact ksc-newsroom@mail.nasa.gov to RSVP by 4:30 p.m. EST today, Tuesday, Nov. 9. Those following the briefing on social media may ask questions using #AskNASA.

Wednesday, Nov. 10

• 4:45 p.m. - NASA TV coverage begins
• 9:03 p.m. – Launch

NASA TV coverage continues through docking, arrival, and the welcome ceremony. In lieu of a postlaunch news conference, NASA leadership will provide comments during the broadcast.

Thursday, Nov. 11

• 7:10 p.m. – Docking
• 8:45 p.m. – Hatch Opening
• 9:20 p.m. – Welcoming Ceremony

Quelle: NASA 

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