Watch SpaceX Launch Next Crew to Space Station on Wednesday
SpaceX Mission Update
KENNEDY SPACE CENTER, Fla. — SpaceX and NASA are targeting no earlier than Wednesday, April 27 for Falcon 9’s launch of Crew-4, Dragon’s fourth science expedition mission to the International Space Station, from Launch Complex 39A (LC-39A) at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida. Launch is targeted for 3:52 a.m. ET (7:52 UTC), with a backup opportunity available on Thursday, April 28.
This will be the first flight of the Dragon spacecraft supporting this mission and the fourth flight for Falcon 9’s first stage booster, which previously launched CRS-22, Crew-3, and Turksat 5B. Following stage separation, Falcon 9’s first stage will land on the A Shortfall of Gravitas droneship stationed in the Atlantic Ocean.
During their time at the orbiting laboratory, the Crew-4 astronauts will conduct over 200 science experiments in areas such as materials science, health technologies, and plant science to prepare for human exploration beyond low-Earth orbit and benefit life on Earth.
You can watch the live launch webcast starting about 4 hours before liftoff.
25 responses to “Watch SpaceX Launch Next Crew to Space Station on Wednesday”
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safe flights
Boy 19 days between manned launches? Did Shuttle ever do this? Gemini of course did this sort of thing in spades. But GO SPACEX!
Not in Spades, but NASA did launch Gemini 7 on December 4, 1965 followed by Gemini 6A on December 15, 1965, but the usual spacing was about 2 months with 6 flights in 1965. Yes, the Shuttle did, peaking out at 9 flights in 1985 with only 17 days between STS-51D and STS-51B. That was reduced to only 16 days between STS-61-C and STS-51-L (the Challenger Accident) after which NASA mostly slowed down, although there were only 18 days between STS-56 and STS-55 in April 1993 and 21 days between STS-64 and STS-68 in September 1994, the last month with two crewed flights. .
Of the Shuttle missions that you mentioned the most comparable was the first pair STS-51D and STS-51B which launched from the same pad. This was when 39A was the only pad used for Shuttle. The later pairs launched from different pads.
STS-51D (39A) STS-51B (39A)
STS-61-C (39A) STS-51-L (39B)
STS-56 (39B) STS-55 (39A)
STS-64 (39B) STS-68 (39A)
Yes, having two pads is an advantage.
That’s why the Crew Dragon flights are impressive since they launched off of one pad. Both Gemini and ST-51D/STS-51B were flown in an era where outside schedule pressure had more of an influence. SpaceX meanwhile doesn’t rush, they are just amazingly fast doing whatever they do once they get their process in place.
Interestingly, SpaceX, as of today, has now launched 26 people to orbit on 7 missions in 23 months. That matches the total number of people NASA launched during both the Mercury and Gemini programs on 16 missions over 66 months between May 1961 and November 1966 – and the first two Mercury missions were suborbital.
Apollo flew 33 more people on 11 missions, 6 of which featured lunar landings during which 12 people walked on the Moon. SpaceX will fly eight more people to orbit this year and, at four Crew Dragon 2 missions per year, should be just shy of Apollo’s total by about this time two years hence. How long it will be before SpaceX equals or surpasses Apollo’s Moonwalker total will likely depend upon whether the company waits for Artemis 3 to be completed before essaying its own, all-SpaceX lunar surface missions, or runs one or more such in front of Artemis 3 should that mission be significantly delayed past its current 2025 target date.
it is a good achievement to get Gemini capability and cost back
Gemini had two astronauts and no cargo capability compared to SpaceX which holds cargo along with four astronauts. So SpaceX is exceeding the capability that Gemini had.
yes I recognize that and was not clear. what I was refering to is that it is good to have the “routine” Ops capability of Dragon and OSC Cygnus and soon be joined by Dreamchaser and Starliner…Gemini was almost point and shoot operational…OSC and SpaceX vehicles are…and the other two will soon be. that is an amazing capability for US crewed space flight. all at a pretty affordable cost.
It’s what happens when you break up a monopoly. Do you remember the good old monopoly days of AT&T when your choice was between a phone bolted forever to the wall and one forever hardwired to the wall that would be stuck on your desk?
The progress between 1910 phones and 1980’s phones were so minor a person transported from 1910 to 1980 would have little problems using one. By contrast a person from 1980 would have no idea what to do with an iPhone and would probably think it came from outer space.
actually no I dont agree that human spaceflight has entered the IPhone stage. of technology development. we have more or less gotten back to Gemini with modern technology but really no unique uses of it
this is because human spaceflight has so far done nothing that comes close to making money based on the effort. and nothing seems in sight. and no the tourist efforts are not it
Markets are never really in sight until someone starts making money from them.
IBM walked away from the opportunity to buy the Xerox process because their experts saw no need for copy machines when carbon paper was so cheap and available.
ah Xerox…visions of Sam Irvin.
I suspect it will happen quickly and perhaps a little suddenly but…1) it will be heavily automated and 2) until it happens nothing is really going to move forward in human spaceflight It will be a great day when it happens.
Meanwhile employees at Xerox Parc invented the graphical user interface, but Xerox didn’t heavily promote it and let it slip into the hands of the two Steves at Apple, and also a small company formed by a couple of former Xerox employees, who then sold their company to IBM, who let the newly acquired subsidiary flounder and it ceased operations shortly afterwards. But who needs GUI anyway when IBM pretty much had the new PC market to themselves, until famously they allowed Microsoft to independently sell separately the operating system that Microsoft provided to IBM, as long as they called it something different than PC DOS, so Microsoft called it MS-DOS. Compaq and other companies put MS-DOS into their “clone” PC’s, and the rest as they say is history.
Space tourism is already profitable for SpaceX and Axiom. Now it’s going to be a process of developing service offerings that can allow knocking first one zero, and then two, off of the ticket prices. Starship will allow doing the first fairly quickly and doing the second not long afterward.
we will see. I dont think so. at least not in any time span that is reasonable. like the next 20 years.
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I dont think Musk is making any money at all off of his non NASA people flights. I have no proof for that but you have no proof he is. that says its mostly talk I bet SpaceX isnt making a dime of profit.
I’ve provided you with proof on any number of occasions. You simply prefer to believe self-invented nonsense because it would apparently fracture your psyche in some way to acknowledge that Musk has not only been right, but wildly successful all these years.
lol I get it though, you have to believe sigh
Probably about the level of the “brick” cell phones. Heavy and clumsy and a massive step forward. From that to IPhone is huge, but landline to brick was also huge.
Yes, we are still in the early brick era, but the forces of iterative development have been unleashed.
I think so. The forces of innovation combined with demand are awesome when free to operate. Free to operate is a key. Regulation by dinosaurs is seldom free.
I can’t relate to the 10,000 square foot houses we work on, but give it my best shot. Don’t have to understand the customer to understand the payment. Don’t need a consensus or public support either as long as the checks clear.
Meanwhile, Boeing’s Starliner is just now getting ready to redo its first 2019 test flight in a few weeks. Hoping it goes well and there are no more problems with it.
Watched the launch from my front yard about 60 miles away. Saw a shooting star when about a minute into the launch. Heard the rumble in person while stage two was burning.
Congratulations on another successful flight!