SpaceX to carry out a static hearth check of its Falcon 9 rocket forward of the Crew-11 launch – Spaceflight Now

SpaceX is making ready for a mid-afternoon demonstration on Monday to confirm the well being of the Falcon 9 rocket that may carry 4 people as much as the International Space Station this week. The three astronauts and one cosmonaut of the mission, dubbed Crew-11, will perform a long-duration keep onboard the orbiting outpost with liftoff deliberate for Thursday, July 31.

The launch firm will gas its 70-meter-tall rocket at Launch Complex 39A at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center earlier than igniting the 9 Merlin engines for a roughly 10-second-long burn. The operation is known as a static hearth check, for the reason that maintain down clamps holding the rocket in place aren’t deliberate to launch forward of engine ignition as they are going to on launch day.

Engine ignition is predicted at 3:09 p.m. EDT (1909 UTC), three hours after the conclusion of a dry gown rehearsal by which the astronauts board the Dragon with the Falcon 9 un-fueled.

Spaceflight Now may have stay protection of the static hearth check starting about half-hour previous to ignition.

SpaceX is utilizing Falcon 9 first stage booster serial quantity B1094 for the Crew-11 mission. The rocket is flying for a 3rd time, having beforehand launched Starlink 12-10 on April 29 adopted by Axiom Mission 4 on June 25.

The totally built-in rocket rolled out of the hangar at LC-39A round midnight heading into Sunday morning. The rocket was introduced into the launch place shortly earlier than 10 a.m. EDT (1400 UTC) Sunday and the crew entry arm swung out to place itself alongside the Crew Dragon Endeavour.

Mission commander and NASA astronaut Zena Cardman and her three crew mates arrived at KSC on Saturday afternoon within the midst of their deliberate quarantine interval, which is commonplace for missions to the ISS. She and Oleg Platonov, a Roscosmos cosmonaut and considered one of two mission specialists, will probably be flying to house for the primary time.

NASA astronaut and pilot Mike Fincke is returning to house for a fourth time. Japanese Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) astronaut and mission specialist Kimiya Yui is making his second journey to the ISS.

The crew will stay and work onboard the station for no less than six months. NASA and its worldwide companions are contemplating extending the nominal mission to eight months to extra carefully align with the shifting timelines being put in place by Russia with its Soyuz missions.

A last resolution on the mission size isn’t anticipated till a few month or so after Crew-11 docks with the ISS.