Covering All Things Florida
In a news release Tuesday, NASA and SpaceX announced they are moving forward with adjusted launch and return timelines for the upcoming crew rotation missions to and from the International Space Station (ISS).
Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams have had their missions extended yet again, this time until at least March, and possibly April 2025. Originally planned as an eight-day mission, Williams and Wilmore’s straightforward task was to take Boeing’s Starliner on its debut flight with crew, dock at ISS for a brief visit before returning home. That was not meant to be.
Jared Isaacman, the billionaire entrepreneur, philanthropist, and private astronaut, has been nominated by President-elect Donald Trump to serve as the next Administrator of NASA. Isaacman, best known to the general public as the commander of both the groundbreaking Inspiration4 and Polaris Dawn space missions and the first private citizen to conduct a spacewalk, is also the CEO of the payment processing giant Shift4, a rapidly growing company that Isaacman started when he was sixteen years old.
NASA has announced that they are scheduling Crew-8 from the International Space Station today so that the four astronauts comprising the crew can begin their return to Earth.
NASA’s Commercial Crew office released its high-level plan for 2025 today. It has few surprises, with two SpaceX Commercial Crew missions, and offers the slightest of updates for Boeing’s Starliner program and holds out the possibility of a Starliner flight next year.
The FAA released a brief statement recognizing that the second stage of SpaceX’s Falcon 9 used for the Crew 9 launch landed outside of its designated landing zone, and that they are requiring an investigation.
SpaceX successfully launched the Crew 9 mission today from Space Launch Complex 40 in the first crewed launch from that storied pad. Liftoff was at 01:17 PM EDT under broken skies and a building threat of storms.
The NASA SpaceX Crew-9 mission, set to launch on September 26, 2024, will see NASA astronaut Nick Hague and Roscosmos cosmonaut Aleksandr Gorbunov embarking on a six-month scientific mission to the International Space Station (ISS). For the first time, a crewed mission will be launched from Launch Complex 40 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, adding a new dimension to SpaceX’s launch capabilities and enhancing operational flexibility (NASA). This mission will also formularize Starliner astronauts currently aboard the ISS with the Dragon spacecraft operations in preparation for their return flight home after the completion of the Crew 9 mission.
In the early hours of Sunday morning, SpaceX’s Polaris Dawn crew successfully completed their five-day journey in space, capping off the historic mission with a splashdown in the Gulf of Mexico. The Crew Dragon capsule, carrying four astronauts, landed off the coast of Dry Tortugas, Florida, at 3:37 a.m. ET, marking the conclusion of a mission that included the world’s first commercial spacewalk.
The Florida skies over the Kennedy Space Center lit up once again this morning with the 5:23 a.m. ET launch of the Polaris Dawn mission. This mission may prove to be one of the most significant yet in the realm of commercial space flight. The mission, spearheaded by SpaceX and billionaire Jared Isaacman, aims to break multiple records and test several new technologies that will advance private space exploration.
SpaceX plans to launch Polaris Dawn early tomorrow morning from Pad LC-39A at Kennedy Space Center, with four astronauts aboard a Crew Dragon. Following weeks of recent weather delays and continued unsettled weather, the mission has a 40% chance of lifting off tomorrow, according to SpaceX.
