Crew-1

[Yazata]

SpaceX and NASA have scheduled Crew-1 for Halloween!

This will be Crew Dragon's second manned flight and the first operational Crew Dragon mission.

https://www.nextspaceflight.com/launches/details/1002

October 31st at 06:40 UTC, 2:40 AM EST (dead of night!) and 11:40 PM PST

The Fall time-change from daylight time to standard time is on Nov 1.

All the seats will be filled and there will be four crew: Victor Glover, Mike Hopkins and Shannon Walker from NASA and Soichi Noguchi from JAXA.

The crew have named their Crew Dragon 'Resilience'. The first crew to fly in a new spaceship get to name it and then it keeps its name from then on. Bob and Doug named theirs 'Endeavor'.

Boeing's Starliner will be a very good vehicle, but it still hasn't completed a successful un-crewed test flight. Most people expected Boeing to win the Commercial Crew race. They were Boeing after all! They had no ends of experience and they were going against crazy Elon and his science fiction nuts. How could they not win? But it didn't turn out to be much of a race at all...

[Yazata]

Crew 1 has been moved back to mid November, date and time TBD.

Kathy Leuders says "The extra time will allow SpaceX to resolve an unexpected observation during a recent non-NASA launch attempt."

This was the recently pad-aborted Falcon 9 launch of the GPS satellite. One of the Merlin engines didn't start up properly. (Despite having done so in static fires at both McGregor and Cape Canaveral.)

https://twitter.com/KathyLueders/status/...0672424960

https://blogs.nasa.gov/commercialcrew/20...ch-update/

[Yazata]

Crew-1 has been set for 7:49 PM EST on november 14 (00:49 UTC 11-15, 4:49 PM PST)

https://www.nasa.gov/press-release/nasa-...aunch-date

nasa photo... you know how new cars have stickers on the windows? So do new Crew Dragons apparently. (Lists all the Tesla options.) Check out the window on the right.

[Image: crew-1_ceitpt2-20200612-dsc05519_2_.jpg?itok=k-lQGNLt]

[Yazata]

Crew-1 is still on the schedule for a week from tomorrow, Saturday 11-14 4:49 PM PST, 7:49 PM EST, 00:49 UTC on 11-15.

SpaceX photo of the Crew-1 Dragon in SpaceX's Cape Canaveral vehicle integration building. Bet that it has that new-car smell.

[Image: KSC-20201105-PH-SPX01_0002-scaled.jpg]

[C C]

Crew-1 is still on the schedule for a week from tomorrow, Saturday 11-14 4:49 PM PST, 7:49 PM EST, 00:49 UTC on 11-15.

Space is a good place to be right now. And astronauts should probably enjoy it while it's still possible. The nostalgia of that old time para-religion (er... Marxist) slogan that wealth is a finite resource is probably returning.

[Syne]

Yep, a manned Mars mission and permanent presence on the moon as out.

[confused2]

Yep, a manned Mars mission and permanent presence on the moon as out.

I (obviously) don't understand US politics but it does look like Congress (I don't want to know) actually sets the budget for NASA. For example in 2019 Congress allocated 2 billion more then Trump requested.  

• FY 2021: $25.2 billion requested by the Trump administration
  
  
• FY 2020: $22.6 enacted, $23 billion requested by Trump9
  
  
• FY 2019: $21.5 billion, Trump requested $19.5 billion, Congress allocated more
  
  
• FY 2018: $19.5 billion, Trump requested $19.1 billion
  
  
• FY 2017: $19.2 billion, Obama requested $18.3 billion
  
  
• FY 2016: $19.3 billion, Obama requested $18.5 billion.
  

Source: 
https://www.thebalance.com/nasa-budget-c...ry-3306321

[Yazata]

The Crew-1 crew have arrived at Cape Canaveral from Houston in a nasa jet.

https://twitter.com/NASA/status/1325512753054842880

[Image: EmVKfqPVcAEnOox?format=jpg&name=small]

Everyone is still talking about launching next Saturday, but I personally suspect that's more and more in doubt due to weather.

[Image: 220457_5day_cone_no_line_and_wind.png]

[Yazata]

In Crew-1 news, it looks like tropical storm Eta will pass north of Cape Canaveral. A successful static fire of B1061 was conducted today, in preparation for the Saturday launch of fours astronauts (3 American, 1 Japanese) to the Space Station.

[Yazata]

Jim Bridenstine has just announced that Crew-1 is being pushed back to Sunday, due to weather/winds.

7:27 PM EST, 4:27 PM PST, 00:47 UTC (on the 16th)

https://twitter.com/JimBridenstine/statu...0022434816