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CAPE CANAVERAL, Florida — NASA management pressured security above all else because the company’s Crew-8 mission to the Worldwide House Station (ISS) prepares for launch.
Crew-8 will ship three NASA astronauts and one Roscosmos cosmonaut to the ISS atop a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket. Liftoff is at present scheduled for Friday (March 1) at 12:04 a.m. EST (0504 GMT). You’ll be able to watch it reside right here at House.com when the time comes.
In a press briefing at Kennedy House Middle right here right now (Feb. 28), NASA Administrator Invoice Nelson underscored that the company’s first precedence stays security, irrespective of how routine industrial launches with SpaceX might seem to the general public.
“Each time we launch, it is white-knuckle time — and particularly when people are on prime,” Nelson instructed reporters through the briefing. “We by no means need to get in to the state of mind that it is so routine that it is like getting in your automobile and taking a Sunday afternoon drive.”
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Nelson mentioned that the routine “state of mind” contributed to the space shuttle Challenger disaster in 1986, through which seven astronauts misplaced their lives.
Crew-8 will mark the fifth flight of the SpaceX Crew Dragon capsule Endeavour, making it the present “fleet chief,” in response to Steve Stich, supervisor of NASA’s Business Crew Program.
Throughout right now’s briefing, Stich elaborated on present discussions this system is having centered round probably extending the variety of flights for which Crew Dragon is rated from 5 to fifteen, stating that SpaceX will study Endeavour element by element after its Crew-8 flight to assist groups make that willpower.
As a part of the deal with security for Crew-8, mission managers are watching a couple of totally different climate programs off the Florida coast that might drive a launch delay from the present schedule.
Stich described the present climate outlook as “marginal,” and added that mission groups will proceed to judge the climate forecast up till launch time.
