The SpaceX Dragon spacecraft, carrying four astronauts, will return to Earth before Sunday morning (Sept. 3) after a one-day weather delay to complete NASA’s Crew-6 mission, and you can watch the action for free online.
The hatches between the SpaceX crew Dragon capsule, Endeavour, and the International Space Station (ISS) are currently scheduled to close on Sunday. 5 a.m. EDT (0900 GMT). Shortly thereafter, Endeavor will be removed from the orbiting laboratory 7:05 a.m. EDT (1105 GMT).
You can watch these Crew-6 mission milestones live on Space.com, courtesy of NASA. Hatch-closing coverage begins 5 a.m. EDT (0900 GMT). After that there will be a short break, and the work of removing the coverage will begin 6:45 a.m. EDT (1045 GMT).
NASA and SpaceX initially aimed to return the Crew-6 astronauts on Saturday, but announced a 24-hour delay on Friday morning (Sept. 1). After a weather briefing early Saturday, mission managers decided to proceed with undocking and splashdown, but only if the weather was favorable.
„NASA and SpaceX are headed for docking at 7:05 a.m. ET Sept. 3, with a splash down on Florida’s coast just after 12:15 a.m. Sept. 4,” NASA wrote in an update on X (formerly known as Twitter). „Weather conditions for Splashdown are improving and crews will be assessed ahead of evacuation.”
Related: SpaceX Crew-6 and Crew-7 astronauts: live updates
Endeavor will then return to Earth, eventually splashing down off the coast of Florida. Monday (Sept. 4) 12:15 am EDT (0415 GMT). Watch that homecoming live here on Space.com; Coverage begins Sunday 11pm EDT (Monday 0300 GMT).
The Crew-6 quartet — NASA astronauts Stephen Bowen and Warren „Woody” Hoberg, Sultan Al Neyadi of the United Arab Emirates and Andrey Fedayov of Russia’s space agency Roscosmos — have spent almost exactly six months in orbit; Endeavor docked with the ISS on March 3.
Crew-6 departs just days after another SpaceX mission: the four-person Crew-7 reached the ISS on August 27.
Crew-7 is more of an international affair than Crew-6. The new mission consists of four astronauts from four different space agencies: NASA’s Jasmine Mokbeli, European Space Agency’s Andreas Mogensen, Roscosmos’ Konstantin Borisov, and Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency’s Satoshi Furukawa.
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