SpaceX's Halloween mission to the International Space Station looks set to launch as scheduled — providing NASA approves the Crew Dragon capsule's upgraded toilet.
The in-flight 'facilities' needed a revamp after a minor leak was noticed in the wake of last month's three-day Inspiration4 mission, which took private citizens into orbit.
The Crew-3 flight will transport four astronauts to the orbiting lab for a six-month stay — including NASA's Raja Chari (the mission commander) and Tom Mashburn.
Making up the final two members of the crew are Kayla Barron, also of NASA, and Matthias Maurer of the European Space Agency.
Weather permitting, lift-off atop a Falcon 9 rocket is scheduled for 2:21 AM EDT (07:21 GMT) on Sunday October 31 from NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida.
The team will arrive at the International Space Station (ISS) early in the morning on November 1, where they will handover with their predecessors on the Crew-2 flight.
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SpaceX's Halloween mission to the International Space Station (ISS) looks set to launch as scheduled — providing NASA approves the Crew Dragon capsule's upgraded toilet. Pictured: the crew capsule arriving at the Kennedy Space Center on Sunday
The Crew-3 flight will transport four astronauts to the orbiting lab for a six-month stay — including NASA's Raja Chari (the mission commander) and Tom Mashburn. Making up the final two members of the crew are Kayla Barron, also of NASA, and Matthias Maurer of the European Space Agency. Pictured: an artist's impression of a Crew Dragon spacecraft docking at the ISS
NASA announced that the Crew-3 mission had the green light for Sunday morning's launch following a successful flight readiness review yesterday.
'We had a good review today,' NASA's International Space Station program manager Joel Montalbano said during last night's press conference.
Although the review flagged no unexpected issues that would necessitate pushing back the launch date, NASA and SpaceX engineers are still working to resolve a possible flaw in the capsule's toilet waste system spotted last month.
The issue was noted after the Inspiration4 mission returned to Earth, having taken billionaire CEO Jared Isaacman, geologist Sian Proctor, data engineer Christopher Sembroski and St. Jude Children's Research Hospital's Hayley Arceneaux into orbit.
Engineers inspecting the 'Resilience' capsule used in that mission found that a tube feeding into the toilet waste storage tank had come loose during the flight.
This, SpaceX vice president of build and flight reliability Bill Gerstenmaier said, 'allowed urine to not go into the storage tank but, essentially, to go into the fan system' — albeit not in any way that significantly affected the Inspiration4 mission.
'We didn't really even notice it; the crew
