Washington. October 6. INTERFAX - SpaceX's Crew Dragon 3 manned spacecraft, which will launch into orbit on October 30, will have to dock automatically with the International Space Station in 24 hours, NASA announced on Wednesday.
"The docking will be carried out on Sunday, October 31 at 00:36 East Coast time (07:36 Moscow Time)," Steve Stitch, manager of NASA's commercial flight program, said at a press conference dedicated to the launch of the spacecraft.
The crew of Crew Dragon 3 includes NASA astronauts Raja Chari (the commander of the ship), Thomas Marshburn and Kayla Barron, as well as German astronaut Matthias Maurer of the European Space Agency (ESA).
They will have to replace the crew of Crew Dragon 2 on the ISS, which arrived at the station on April 24. These are NASA astronauts Megan MacArthur and Shane Kimbrough, ESA astronaut Tom Peske and Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) astronaut Akihiko Hoshide. They will leave the station in early November.
The launch of the Crew Dragon 3 manned spacecraft using SpaceX's Falcon 9 heavy launch vehicle is scheduled to take place on October 30 at 02:43 US Eastern Time (09:43 Moscow Time) from the launch pad LC-39A at the Cape Canaveral Cosmodrome in Florida. It is planned that the crew will stay on the ISS for six months.
He will work at the station together with Roscosmos cosmonauts Peter Dubrov, Anton Shkaplerov and NASA astronaut Mark Vande Hai.