NASA, SpaceX punch through weather threat for Crew-11 launch

KENNEDY SPACE CENTER — SpaceX was back one day after a weather-related scrub and threaded the needle amid threatening clouds to send up the Crew-11 mission to the International Space Station.

A Falcon 9 rocket topped with the Crew Dragon Endeavour lifted off from KSC’s Launch Pad 39-A at 11:43 a.m. carrying NASA astronauts Zena Cardman and Mike Fincke, JAXA astronaut Kimiya Yui and Roscosmos cosmonaut Oleg Platonov to space.

“I have no emotions but joy right now. That was absolutely transcendent — ride of a lifetime,” said Cardman, making her first trip to space.

“Boy, it’s great to be back in orbit again,” added Fincke, a veteran of three previous missions. “Thank you to SpaceX and NASA to get us here. What a ride.”

The first-stage booster made its third flight and touched back down for what was SpaceX’s final use of Landing Zone 1 at nearby Cape Canaveral Space Force Station sending a sonic boom across the Space Coast.

The rocket shot through a break amid darkening clouds and into space. The previous day, they had their launch scrubbed with one minute and seven seconds on the countdown clock  when a storm cell opened up right over the pad. They actually had to put on raincoats over their spacesuits as they made their way out of the capsule for what turned out to be just a one-day delay.

The quartet, who arrived to KSC on Saturday, were back Friday getting prepped for launch, donning their spacesuits after 7 a.m. at the Neil Armstrong Operations & Checkout Building. They made their walkout after 8 a.m. to ride over to launch pad in black Teslas with license plates that read “Live,” “Laugh” and “Launch.”

By 9 a.m. the had made their way up the launch tower to climb back on board their spacecraft. With an hour to go, all were prepped in their seats with the hatch closed awaiting fueling and arming of the launch escape system.

When it does launch, NASA Commercial Crew Program manager Steve Stich said it will be groundbreaking for NASA use of a commercial spacecraft.

“We worked very hard with SpaceX to complete all the reuse activities for this vehicle. We had certified the vehicles – the Dragons – for only five flights. Now, we’ve completed all that work, and we’re really ready to go,” he said.

It was the same Crew Dragon that flew the first astronauts for SpaceX back in 2020, now part of a stable of five crew-capable Dragons. With Crew-11’s launch, SpaceX will have flown 74 humans across 19 missions in just over five years.

The mission will relieve the Crew-10 members who have been on board the space station since mid-March, but won’t undock until they complete a short handover period during with the space station population will grow from seven to 11.

Crew-11 is targeting docking with the station around 3 a.m. Saturday after a 16-hour trip. The crew will be on the station for at least six months, but NASA could stretch the mission to as long as eight months.

For its members, Cardman and Platonov are rookies while Yui is making his second trip having flown to the station a decade ago, and Fincke is making his fourth trip to space having last flown to the station as part STS-134, the last flight of Space Shuttle Endeavour, as well as two previous missions on Soyuz spacecraft.

Cardman had originally been tapped to command the Crew-9 mission, but was bumped after NASA needed space on board to allow for the return flight to the two Boeing Starliner astronauts that were left behind on the station when their spacecraft was sent home without crew because of safety concerns.

Fincke and Yui had both been training to fly future crewed missions of Starliner, but were shifted to this SpaceX mission as Boeing’s beleaguered spacecraft continues to face delays.

With their arrival to the station, the orbiting laboratory will have welcomed 290 people from 26 nations. The station will mark 25 years of continuous human presence in November having began Expedition 1 in 2000. The Crew-11 crew will become of Expedition 73 when they arrive and continue on as part of Expedition 74 that begins in November when the next replacement crew from Russia arrives.