NASA said Friday it is aiming for April 20 at the earliest to launch another SpaceX spacecraft that will take this mission Akihiko Hoshide from Japan and three other astronauts to the International Space Station.
This is the third flight to the ISS with a Crew Dragon capsule, developed by US company Space Exploration Technologies Corp. The previous flight, known as the Crew-1 mission, took place in November, carrying three NASA astronauts and Japan’s Soichi. Noguchi.
Procurement photo showing Akihiko Hoshide (R) with his astronauts at a NASA facility in Texas in September, 2020. (Photo courtesy of JAXA / NASA) (Kyodo)
Accompanying the upcoming Crew-2 mission, which it will take from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida, will be Hoshide, 52, two NASA astronauts and another astronaut from the European Space Agency.
The return of Crew-1 astronauts is currently scheduled for late April or early May and Crew-2 missions are targeted in the fall, according to the National Aeronautics and Space Administration.
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Noguchi, 55, was the first non-American astronaut to be flown by the first NASA-certified commercial human spacecraft system.
The SpaceX system is expected to be a follower of NASA’s Space Shuttle program that was in service for 30 years through 2011, with its development coming to an end in the years after the reliance on the Soyuz vehicle Russia as the only way to get to the ISS.
NASA said it and SpaceX are also preparing for the launch of the Crew-3 mission, which is currently focused on the fall.