SpaceX set to launch its latest crew to ISS for NASA

Days after a SpaceX Dragon capsule crewed by wealthy adventurers splashed down off Florida’s coast, another is set to launch Wednesday, this time for a NASA mission to the International Space Station.

The massive Artemis I rocket is ferried atop its mobile launch platform back to the Vehicle Assembly Building at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida on April 26, 2022. – At right, the SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket sits at Launch Pad 39A, just one day away from sending the Crew-4 mission astronauts into orbit. Standing taller than the Statue of Liberty, the Artemis I rocket was rolled out to the launch pad for a dress rehearsal and testing on March 17. The countdown demonstration test to load the Artemis rocket with propellant was was attempted three times but failed due to a hydrogen leak on the mobile launcher. Its return to High Bay 3 of the assembly building was expected to take at least eight hours. **Gregg Newton / AFP**

With weather appearing favorable, the Crew-4 mission should blast off from the Kennedy Space Center at 3:52 am (0752 GMT), carrying Americans Kjell Lindgren, Bob Hines and Jessica Watkins, as well as Italian Samantha Cristoforetti of the European Space Agency.

The event will be livestreamed on NASA’s website and social media.

The rapid turnaround time for SpaceX — a little under 40 hours between recovering one crew and sending up another — is a sign of an increasingly busy human spaceflight calendar since Elon Musk’s company became NASA’s mainstay astronaut taxi in 2020.

Between 2011 — when the Space Shuttle program ended — and 2020, NASA was reliant on Russian Soyuz rockets for the service.

“Think how the Cape has transformed, think about all of those abandoned launchpads on the Cape, and how they are roaring back to life,” NASA Administrator Bill Nelson said in a press call Tuesday.

Crew-4 will join the Crew-3 quartet, who are approaching the end of their five-month rotation on the ISS, as well as three Russians on the Russian segment of the orbital outpost.

A date for Crew-3’s return will be set soon.

Crew-4 is due to carry out hundreds of scientific experiments, including ongoing research into growing plants without soil in space.

Another involves developing an artificial human retina, leveraging the microgravity environment of the ISS to help deposit layer after layer of thin films of protein.

The technology “could eventually be used to replace damaged photoreceptor cells in the eyes and potentially restore meaningful vision to the millions of people who suffer from retinal degenerative disease,” said NASA scientist Heidi Parris.