SpaceX, NASA say Crew-11 astronaut mission is ‘go’ for launch to ISS on July 31

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. — SpaceX’s Crew-11 astronaut mission to the International Space Station for NASA is go for launch.

When Crew-11 launches, a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket will lift off from historic Launch Complex 39A here at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center (KSC), sending a crew of four the ISS for a six-month stay. Mission managers with NASA and SpaceX all polled ‘go’ to proceed to count down towards a 12:09 p.m. ET (1609 GMT) launch attempt of the Crew-11 mission on Thursday (July 31).

“I’m so eager to see this mission launch, but as always, we launch when we’re ready. With a little luck, we’ll see a launch soon, and we’ll also see a crew come home soon,” said Ken Bowersox, associate administrator for NASA’s Space Operations Mission Directorate, during a prelaunch briefing at KSC today (July 30). “But be patient with us. Let’s make sure that the vehicle is ready to go and that our team is really certain before we hit the button.”

The four Crew-11 astronauts will dock with the ISS some 39 hours after launch. They will be flying inside SpaceX’s Crew Dragon Endeavour spacecraft, flying on its milestone sixth flight. No other Crew Dragon has flown more than four times.

Steve Stich, manager of NASA’s Commercial Crew Program, hailed the milestone in today’s briefing. “As you know, this is a really important mission for us. It’s our sixth flight of Dragon Endeavour. We worked very hard with SpaceX to complete all the reuse activities for this vehicle,” Stich said. “We had certified the vehicles  — the Dragons  — for only five flights. Now we’ve completed all that work and we’re really ready to go.”

Crew-11 consists of NASA astronaut Zena Cardman, who will serve as commander on her first trip to space. In a press briefing earlier this month, Cardman stressed how six-month stays on the ISS like the one she will embark on will help prepare NASA to send astronauts much farther into space.

“Understanding how to live and work for long durations — going and staying — is a really interesting challenge, and I’m grateful that we’ve gotten the chance to do this — to hone our skills on the ISS, so that we can do this for longer durations on the moon,” Cardman said.

“The International Space Station, in my perspective, is an absolutely critical stepping stone as we think about going farther afield.”

Joining Cardman as mission pilot is veteran NASA astronaut Mike Fincke, making his fourth trip into space. Fincke previously trained to pilot Boeing’s troubled Starliner spacecraft on its first operational mission, but was reassigned as delays and issues continue to plague the Starliner program.

Alongside the two NASA astronauts are Kimiya Yui of the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA), making his second trip to the ISS while serving as Crew-11 mission specialist, and Oleg Platonov of Russia’s space agency Roscosmos, mission specialist, making his first trip to space.

Crew-11 will dock at 3 a.m. ET (0800 GMT) on Aug. 2 and will overlap with the Crew-10 astronauts for a few days to ensure a smooth handover before Crew-10 makes its way back to Earth for a splashdown in the Pacific Ocean.

If all goes according to plan, the four members of Crew-11 will remain docked at the ISS for roughly six months before the next NASA astronaut rotation relieves them.

The U.S. Space Force has predicted a 90% chance of favorable weather for Crew-11 at launch time.