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Planned for next Thursday April 22. It will be live streamed multiple places, not least nasa-live.

This will be a the first time that a new crew rides in a used Crew Dragon. This capsule was Bob and Doug's Demo-2 ride. It came back all toasty but it's been repainted. Booster will also be the first time that crew rides on a used booster, in this case B 1061.2, the booster that lofted Crew-1. We can all remember when nasa was refusing to fly astronauts in used capsules or on used rockets and when they relented. But this will be the first time it actually happens.

There will be four crew members, one Japanese JAXA astronaut, one European ESA astronaut (from France), and two US astronauts. The Americans are a man and a woman, the woman being Bob Behnken's wife Megan. Bob has Crew Dragon experience as half of 'Bob and Doug' and he probably clued her in on the capsule's peculiarities.

https://www.nasa.gov/subject/19027/crew2/

They just concluded the Flight Readiness Review and found no issues with the Dragon. There was a slight issue regarding LOX loading on the Falcon, but it was minor. So they decided to "take an exception" in the FRR, but will be working the issue tomorrow.

https://twitter.com/TylerG1998/status/13...5448415235

B1061.2 conducted a static fire early this morning at Pad 39A at Cape Canaveral. (Photo by Julia Bergeron from twitter.)

Crew-2 has slipped a day to Friday morning at 5:49 AM EDT/2:49 AM PDT due to unsatisfactory weather downrange in areas where Crew-2 would have to abort to if things go bad. (Weather promises to be good at Cape Canaveral.)

Live coverage on nasa-tv scheduled to start at 1:30 AM EDT.

https://blogs.nasa.gov/commercialcrew/20...9-a-m-edt/

https://www.nasa.gov/multimedia/nasatv/#public

For you insomniacs, you can watch Crew-2 live

(I'll be doing it at 3 AM my time)

SpaceX



nasa live



nsf

Just got up after watching an absolutely beautiful early morning launch (about 3 AM my time).

https://twitter.com/KSpaceAcademy/status...9734121475

https://twitter.com/NASASpaceflight/stat...0576329734 

Our four Crew-2 astronauts are currently in orbit as their Dragon performs a series of burns to match its orbit with the Space Station. Live coverage continues on nasa-live. Currently lots of stuff about what they eat, when they sleep etc. Very educational.

The launch put on a spectacular light show above the east coast of the US, as it rose out of the pre-dawn darkness into the sun above. In the video clip in the tweet below (look at it in full-screen) we see the second stage near the bottom powering away from the camera. And above it/closer is the first stage booster B1061.2 using its thrusters to position itself correctly to reenter the atmosphere and find it's floating landing pad out in the Atlantic. It landed successfully on OCISLY. (These boosters aren't flown by remote control. They are autonomous robots and they fly themselves!)

https://twitter.com/NASASpaceflight/stat...5315241988

Photo by Chris Gebhardt from his home in Daytona Beach FL (Good thing that MR didn't see this. Dimensional portals!)

Crew-2 has successfully docked with the Space Station and its four astronauts have entered.

There's currently two Crew Dragons docked to the Space Station. (Plus one Soyuz, two Progress cargo capsules and a Cygnus cargo capsule.) Six vehicles parked there, three of them passenger vehicles. There are currently 11 astronauts on the station - 5 Americans, 3 Russians, 2 Japanese and one European. The record number of people on the station is 13 from back in the Shuttle days. It always happens during crew replacements when the new crew and the crew that they are replacing are both there for a short handover period. Crew-1 is slated to return to Earth in a few days with 3 of the Americans and one of the Japanese. So for the next few months there will be 3 Russians, 2 Americans, a Japanese and a Frenchman.

(nasa graphic)

Admit it! You've all wanted to see this!

The Crew Dragon toilet! Looks pretty minimal, a funnel arrangement looks like. I'm not sure what they do with solid waste, crap into a can?

And all out there in front of the other astronauts.

Photo by the French astronaut. (The French are world authorities on weird toilets.) 

Crew - 2's Dragon has detached from the Space Station and is scheduled to splash down in the Gulf of Mexico off Pensacola Florida tonight about 7:30 PM PST, 10:30 EST



Edit Crew-2's capsule is safely back in the Gulf of Mexico. The reentry blackout period remains scary. It was for Mercury in the 1960's, it still is today.

Absolutely great photograph of Crew-2 departing the Space Station

ISS photograph