General
November 15, 2020
5 minutes read

SpaceX Set For Historic Crew Mission

Astronauts Michael Hopkins (left) and Soichi Noguchi (right). Photo credit: NASA After getting formally certified earlier this month by NASA…

Astronauts Michael Hopkins (left) and Soichi Noguchi (right).
Photo credit: NASA

After getting formally certified earlier this month by NASA for crew missions to and fro the International Space Station following the success of its recent pilot mission when it sent two astronauts to the ISS on the Falcon 9 in May and successfully returned them in August, the aerospace company SpaceX is set to perform another crew mission, this time with four astronauts that’ll it send to the International Space Station aboard a Falcon 9 and Crew Dragon human spaceflight system on Sunday night.

SpaceX is set to send four astronauts into space, three of whom are from America’s NASA and one from the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA). They are by names Mike Hopkins, Victor Glover, Shannon Walker, and Soichi Noguchi, heading on a mission to the ISS that’ll last for six months.

The crew mission is the first out of three that are scheduled to take place over this year and the next. SpaceX recently made history by being the first private and American company to successfully send a human into space and bring them back and, as a result, has gotten a lucrative contract to perform crew missions for NASA. Before now, NASA relied on Russia’s Soyuz rocket to ferry its astronauts to and from the ISS.

SpaceX’s latest mission was originally set for Friday but got postponed by two days. The launch will take place at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida, whereas the infographic below demonstrates how it’s expected to be done.