NASA's astronauts aboard the International Space Station is scheduled to relocate their Crew Dragon Endeavour spacecraft on July 21.
The scheduled relocation is the first time in the history of a space mission that two different US commercial spacecraft created for crew will be docked to the microgravity laboratory simultaneously.
The live coverage will start at 6:00 A.M. Eastern Standard Time on the NASA app, NASA TV, and NASA's official website.
NASA's Live Stream of Crew Dragon
NASA astronauts Shane Kimbrough and Megan McArthur, Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency astronaut Akihiko Hoshide, and European Space Agency astronaut Thomas Pesquet will board the Crew Dragon spacecraft about 4 AM Eastern Standard Time and undock from the forward port of the station's Harmony module for 45 minutes.
The spacecraft will dock again in the Space Station's port at 7:00 A.M. Eastern Standard Time.
The relocation of the Crew Dragon will give Boeing's CST-100 Starliner spacecraft enough space on Harmony's forward port.
The CST-100 Starliner is scheduled for launch on July 30 as part of NASA's Boeing Orbital Flight Test-2 mission.
The flight will also test the capabilities of the Starliner spacecraft, from its stability after its atmospheric re-entry, its resilience to dock, and its desert landing.
NASA stated that the mission would provide data about Boeing's crew transportation system. It will also help the space agency certify Starliner and the United Launch Alliance or ULA's Atlas V rocket for regular flights to and from the Space Station.
This will be the second time that the Crew Dragon spacecraft was relocated. On April 23, NASA's SpaceX Crew-2 mission lifted off from the Kennedy Space Center and docked successfully to the Space Station on April. 24.
Crew-2 is the second of six certified crew missions NASA and SpaceX have planned as part of their Commercial Crew Program. The Crew-2 is scheduled to return to Earth in November, according to Market Screener.
NASA's Crew Dragon Endeavour
The Crew Dragon Endeavour was the first to complete a mission with a crew inside when it fell in the Gulf of Mexico with astronauts Bob Behnken and Doug Hurley as part of test flight Demo-2 in 2020.
The fight became the first time since 2011 that the space agency had launched astronauts into space from the United States, and it paved the way for Crew-1, which was launched in November.
Both Crew-1 and Resilience have returned to Earth while Crew Dragon Endeavour and Crew-2 are still in orbit.
SpaceX stated that it wants to use Resilience again to launch Crew-3, but the company also wants to utilize Resilience on a private mission to orbit the Earth by attaching it to a spacecraft called Inspiration4 scheduled to launch in September.
As soon as Crew-3 arrives at the International Space Station, Crew-2 onboard Crew Dragon Endeavour will return to Earth and will land again in the Gulf of Mexico, according to Orlando Sentinel.
NASA stated that after the SpaceX Crew-3 flight, the next crew rotation would target mid-2022, but whether the mission would involve Boeing would be announced in the next few months.
Related Article: SpaceX's Crew Dragon Resilience: How to Watch ISS Astronauts Take Their Shortest Interstellar Travel Yet
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Written by Sophie Webster
