Crew-6 to launch this Sunday
Crew-6 – consisting of 4 crew members – is already at Kennedy Area Heart in Florida this week. They’re getting ready to launch to the Worldwide Area Station (ISS) – using aboard a SpaceX Dragon capsule, powered by a Falcon 9 rocket – on Sunday, February 26, 2023.
It’ll be NASA’s sixth mission to ISS utilizing a SpaceX Dragon.
You’ll be able to watch the launch – at present set for 7:07 UTC (2:07 a.m. ET) on February 26 – through the livestream at this link or within the video participant beneath.
ISS arrival the following day
Following launch, Dragon ought to arrive at ISS at 6 UTC (1 a.m. ET) on Monday, February 27. It’ll be a few hours earlier than docking is full, and the crew can be a part of the workforce already aboard ISS.
The crew of 4 plans to remain on the ISS for roughly seven months.
The final Crew mission, Crew-5, efficiently carried 4 astronauts to the ISS in October 2022.
![Crew-6: Four men in blue flight suits stand by a sign with their names with a NASA plane in the background.](https://earthsky.org/upl/2023/02/Crew-6-walkout-Greg-Diesel-Walck-Feb-21-2023-KSC-scaled-e1677005426774.jpg)
Area station woes
So crew transport is progressing. However ISS itself has had its share of woes over the previous months. First a Soyuz spacecraft, after safely delivering three astronauts to ISS in September, began leaking coolant whereas docked with the space station. Then a Progress provide craft docked on the ISS started leaking coolant in February. It’s attainable that micrometeoroids – tiny bits of rock or different materials in space, crashing into ISS – are responsible.
“Exterior influence” blamed for coolant loss (…once more, this time on the Progress MS-21 cargo ship).
DETAILS: https://t.co/QA5zHmYE03 pic.twitter.com/h7GWfWPJuJ— Anatoly Zak (@RussianSpaceWeb) February 21, 2023
Backside line: Crew-6 will launch to the Worldwide Area Station on February 26, 2023. The 4 crew members arrived at Kennedy Area Heart on February 21.