WASHINGTON — NASA and SpaceX are proceeding with a commercial crew mission to the International Space Station later this week, part of a busy schedule of missions to the station this year.
NASA completed a flight readiness review Feb. 25 for the Crew-8 mission to the ISS, announcing late in the day that the agency had approved plans for the launch, scheduled for 12:04 a.m. Eastern March 1 from the Kennedy Space Center. That would allow the Crew Dragon spacecraft to dock with the station at approximately 7 a.m. Eastern March 2.
Crew-8 is the latest crew rotation mission to the station. It will carry NASA astronauts Matthew Dominick, Michael Barratt and Jeanette Epps, and Roscosmos cosmonaut Alexander Grebenkin, to the station for a six-month stay. The flight will be the first for all but Barrett, who will be making his third flight and second long-duration stay on the ISS.
At a media briefing after the fight readiness review, NASA and SpaceX officials said they were working on a few minor technical issues with the Crew Dragon spacecraft and Falcon 9 rocket. That includes confirming composite panels on the vehicle are properly fastened and studying paint discoloration seen on the Crew-7 Crew Dragon currently at the station that could change the vehicle’s thermal properties on reentry, said Steve Stich, NASA commercial crew program manager.
Those open items, he said, did not appear to be major issues. “I suspect we’ll close these out Tuesday or Wednesday.”
One previous issue that appears to be resolved involved straps in the main parachutes called “energy modulators” intended to regulate the load on the parachutes as they are extracted from the capsule. Some of those straps did not pull apart as designed on a cargo Dragon mission, CRS-29, that returned in December.
Those straps worked as intended on the most recent Crew Dragon flight, the Ax-3 private astronaut mission that splashed down Feb. 9. “We didn’t see any of the…
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