NASA TV went live on Monday morning to offer live coverage as four of the International Space Station’s (ISS’s) residents ready up to board the Crew Dragon Resilience spacecraft on a mission to relocate it in preparation for the arrival of the next commercial crew astronauts.
This marks the first time a NASA crew has relocated a commercial spacecraft to a new dock on the ISS, particularly SpaceX’s Crew Dragon.
In addition, the relocation project will prepare the ISS for delivery of new solar arrays, set to arrive this summer.
The mission includes NASA astronauts Michael Hopkins, Victor Glover, and Shannon Walker, as well as Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) astronaut Soichi Noguchi. The mission is set to undock Resilience from the ISS’s forward port of the Harmony module, docking instead to the space-facing Zenith port.
.@NASA TV is live now as NASA astronauts prepare to take a spin around station in the Crew Dragon Resilience, relocating it to prepare for the arrival of new spacecrafts this summer. Read More… https://t.co/1F0iFrUIXK pic.twitter.com/jaCi4jU7tO
— International Space Station (@Space_Station) April 5, 2021
At 4:14 AM PST, Crew Dragon completed its relocation to the space-facing port of the Harmony module, as you can see below:
Soft capture confirmed of the @SpaceX Crew Dragon to the space-facing port of the Harmony module. https://t.co/cBNqC5JGaz pic.twitter.com/GWIN264rEX
— International Space Station (@Space_Station) April 5, 2021
The forward port of the Harmony module will now be free for four new crew members aboard the Crew Dragon Endeavour, which is set to dock in the old port’s place.
New arrivals for NASA’s SpaceX Crew-2 mission include Shane Kimbrough, Megan McArthur, JAXA astronaut Aki Hoshide, and European Space Agency (ESA) astronaut Thomas Pesquet, which are set to launch to the station on Thursday, April 22.
The current mission marks the first port relocation of a Crew Dragon spacecraft, after an initial docking to the station which took place on November 16, 2020.
