NASA and SpaceX are making final preparations for the Crew-7 flight to the International Space Station (ISS).
The mission had been expected to launch in the early hours of Friday, August 25, but four hours before launch SpaceX announced it’s now targeting no earlier than 3:27 a.m. ET (12:27 a.m. PT) on Saturday, August 26, saying only that the change would offer “additional time to complete and discuss analysis.”
The four spacefarers on the Crew-7 mission include NASA’s Jasmin Moghbeli from the U.S., the European Space Agency’s Andreas Mogensen from Denmark, Satoshi Furukawa of the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency, and Russian Konstantin Borisov of Roscosmos.
The crew will reach the space station the day after launch and then spend the next six months living and working aboard the orbital laboratory about 250 miles above Earth.
Crew-7 marks the eighth human spaceflight mission supported by a SpaceX Dragon spacecraft and the seventh crew rotation mission to the space station since 2020 for NASA.
The launch is NASA’s first involving professional astronauts since the Crew-6 flight in February, and its first crewed mission since the Ax-2 flight in May that took four private citizens to the ISS.
What to expect
NASA and SpaceX will live stream events leading up to the launch, as well as the launch itself. Viewers will be able to see the crew making their way to the Crew Dragon capsule atop the Falcon 9 rocket at the Kennedy Space Center. You’ll also see the astronauts entering the capsule and taking their seats.
Cameras will track the rocket as it blasts off from the launchpad, powering the Crew Dragon capsule toward the ISS. The coverage will also include the return of the rocket’s first stage for an upright landing so that it can be used again in another mission.
How to watch
SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket is targeted to launch Crew-7 to orbit no earlier than 3:27 a.m. ET (12:27 a.m. PT) on Saturday, August 26 from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida.
The livestream will start about an hour before liftoff and can be viewed via the video player at the top of this page, or via SpaceX’s YouTube channel.
If anything delays the launch, a backup opportunity for the Crew-7 mission is available on Sunday at 3:04 a.m. ET (12:04 a.m. PT). Be sure to check SpaceX’s social feeds for the very latest news on the mission.
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