KENNEDY SPACE CENTER, Fla. – SpaceX is preparing to launch three NASA astronauts and a Russian cosmonaut on Friday, beginning a six-month mission to the International Space Station.
A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket is scheduled to launch the Crew Dragon spacecraft named Endeavour with the Crew-8 mission astronauts at 12:04 a.m. from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center launchpad 39A.
NASA astronauts Matthew Dominick, Michael Barratt and Jeanette Epps and Roscosmos cosmonaut Alexander Grebenkin arrived at KSC in Florida on Sunday ahead of their launch to the ISS.
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On Monday night, SpaceX and NASA completed a final dress rehearsal for launch day with the astronaut-cosmonaut crew.
The Crew-8 mission marks the eighth operation mission part of NASA’s Commercial Crew Program and the ninth SpaceX launch carrying NASA astronauts since 2020.
Epps, Barratt and Grebenkin are first-time space flyers. The mission will be Barratt’s third.
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The visit to the low-Earth orbiting laboratory has been a long time coming for Epps. She was assigned to a 2018 Soyuz launch to the space station but ultimately did not launch on that mission. Six years after she was first set to fly, Epps will launch on an American spacecraft.
Epps was later assigned to fly on Boeing’s Starliner spacecraft and then reassigned to Crew Dragon last year. While Epps prepares for her launch to the ISS this week, a United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket is undergoing testing downrange at Cape Canaveral to launch the Boeing Starliner and two NASA astronauts in late April.
If the SpaceX launch goes Friday, Dragon Endeavour will dock at the space station about 6 a.m. ET Saturday. The incoming astronauts will be greeted by an international crew from Russia, Europe, Japan and the U.S. currently living on the station.
After spending about six months on the ISS, the Crew-8 astronauts will return to Earth in the fall.