Next week, NASA will use a reusable spacecraft and a reusable first stage of a launch vehicle simultaneously for the first time for a manned launch to the International Space Station (ISS). This was announced at a press conference by NASA head of the manned flight program Kathy Lueders.
"For the first time, we will use both a reusable capsule and a reusable first stage," she said at a pre-launch briefing.
On April 22, the Crew Dragon spacecraft will launch to the ISS on a Falcon 9 launch vehicle.NASA astronauts Robert Kimbrough and Megan MacArthur, as well as Japanese astronaut Akihiko Hoshide and French astronaut Tom Pesquet will go into orbit on board.
As reported by Luders, preparations for the launch of Crew Dragon are going according to plan. According to her, during the final analysis, only one problem was identified, which experts hope to eliminate before the flight. As told in the company SpaceX, a deviation was detected in the indicators recorded during the loading of fuel into the rocket.
On March 18, it was reported that NASA and SpaceX signed an agreement to prevent collisions between the agency's spacecraft and the Starlink Internet satellites. The agreement provides for a "deeper" level of coordination, interaction and data exchange. According to the agreements, SpaceX undertakes to ensure the maneuvering of its satellites in the event of a potential rendezvous.
