SpaceX and NASA announced Friday that the Crew-9 mission will launch to the ISS on August 18. The announcement comes after the US Federal Aviation Administration gave the green light for the launch of SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket, which was temporarily grounded due to a recent accident.
The world’s most-used Falcon 9 rocket suffered its first accident in seven years, with one of its stages collapsing in space and losing its payload of a Starlink satellite.
The Crew-9 mission will be the ninth crew rotation to the ISS, a joint effort between NASA and SpaceX. The crew will include NASA astronauts Zena Cardman, Nick Hague, Stephanie Wilson, and Oleksandr Gorbunov. They will travel to the ISS on a SpaceX Dragon spacecraft powered by a Falcon 9 rocket.
The previous eighth crew rotation, Crew-8, launched from Cape Canaveral Space Station in Florida in March of this year. The crew, aboard the Crew Dragon Endeavour capsule, arrived at the space station after a 16-hour flight. Like the upcoming Crew-9 mission, Crew-8 used a Falcon 9 rocket and Crew Dragon spacecraft, mirroring current operations between NASA and SpaceX.
The launch of the Crew-9 mission is the next step in a collaboration between NASA and SpaceX aimed at establishing a permanent human presence on the ISS and developing opportunities for further space exploration.