CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. — By this time next week, Crew-6 will be getting acclimated to their new home at the International Space Space for possibly the next six months.
Earlier this week, managers from NASA and SpaceX met as part of the NASA SpaceX Crew-6 mission's Flight Readiness Review (FRR) to get ready for the sixth crew rotation mission with SpaceX to the microgravity laboratory.
"The FRR focused on the preparedness of SpaceX’s crew transportation system, the space station, and its international partners to support the flight, as well as the certification of flight readiness," NASA explained in an update.
NASA's SpaceX Crew-6 mission is expected to liftoff at 1:45 a.m. EST on Monday, Feb. 27, from Kennedy's Launch Complex 39A.
Aboard the rocket for the mission will be two NASA astronauts, mission commander Stephen Bowen and pilot Warren "Woody" Hoburg, United Arab Emirates astronaut Sultan Alneyadi, and Roscosmos cosmonaut Andrey Fedyaev who will serve as the mission specialists to the ISS for a science expedition mission.
This is the fourth spaceflight for Bowen. Crew-6 will be the first spaceflight for everyone else. The crewmates touched down in Florida on Feb. 21 in preparation for the upcoming launch.
They will fly aboard the SpaceX Crew Dragon spacecraft Endeavour, NASA says, carried by the company's Falcon 9 rocket.
The rocket arrived at NASA Kennedy Space Center’s Launch Complex 39A Thursday morning after rolling out from the SpaceX integration hangar not far from the launch pad, NASA said in a post. Friday, the rocket's nine Merlin first-stage engines "roared to life for seven seconds," NASA said, completing the routine but critical integrated static fire test.
Once they arrive at the ISS, Crew-6 will spend up to six months at the space station before returning to Earth.