SpaceX Crew-6 was the sixth crewed operational NASA Commercial Crew flight of a Crew Dragon spacecraft, and the ninth overall crewed orbital flight. The mission launched on 2 March 2023 at 05:34:14UTC, and it successfully docked to the International Space Station (ISS) on 3 March 2023 at 06:40UTC. The Crew-6 mission transported four crew members to the International Space Station (ISS). Two NASA astronauts, a United Arab Emirates astronaut, and a Russian cosmonaut were assigned to the mission. The two NASA astronauts are Stephen Bowen and Warren Hoburg.[5] The cosmonaut, Andrey Fedyaev, was reassigned from Soyuz MS-23. Sultan Al Neyadi was the commander of the United Arab Emirates' mission on the flight.
MBRSC participation in this mission resulted from a 2021 agreement between NASA and Axiom to fly a NASA astronaut, Mark T. Vande Hei, onboard Soyuz MS-18 (launch) and Soyuz MS-19 (return) in order to ensure a continuing American presence on board the ISS. In return, Axiom received the rights to a NASA owned seat onboard SpaceX Crew-6. Axiom provided the flight opportunity to MBRSC professional crew members through an agreement with the United Arab Emirates Space Agency.[8] Later, the astronaut was confirmed to be Sultan Al Neyadi.[9]
Andrey Fedyaev was selected in July 2022 for this mission as a part of the Soyuz-Dragon crew swap system of keeping at least one NASA astronaut and one Roscosmos cosmonaut on each of the crew rotation missions.[10] This ensures both countries have a presence on the station, and the ability to maintain their separate systems if either Soyuz or commercial crew vehicles are grounded for an extended period.[11]
The sixth SpaceX operational mission in the Commercial Crew Program (CCP) was launched on 2 March 2023 and lasted approximately six months. The mission was scheduled to launch early on 27 February 2023. However, the initial attempt was scrubbed and rescheduled for 2 March 2023 at 5:34 amUTC.[1][2][3] The second launch attempt was successful.
Alongside Crew-6, the Dragon capsule is designed to be able to bring back the Soyuz MS-22 crew if necessary, serving as an emergency evacuation, as was Crew-5. Roscosmos elected to launch Soyuz MS-23 without a crew to return the MS-22 crew instead of using this capability.[13]
Launch attempt
The first launch attempt was scrubbed at T−02:12 minutes due to an issue with the TEA-TEB spontaneous ignition fluid (times are UTC).[14]
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^ abClark, Stephen (13 January 2023). "Launch Schedule". Spaceflight Now. Retrieved 13 January 2023.
^ abCawley, James (27 February 2023). "NASA, SpaceX Look to March 2 for Next Available Crew-6 Launch Attempt". NASA. Retrieved 27 February 2023. ... NASA and SpaceX will forgo a launch opportunity on Tuesday, Feb. 28, due to unfavorable weather forecast conditions. The next available launch attempt is at 12:34 a.m. EST Thursday, March 2, pending resolution of the technical issue preventing Monday's launch. ...
^ abWall, Mike (27 February 2023). "SpaceX scrubs Crew-6 astronaut launch due to ignition-fluid issue". Space.com. Retrieved 27 February 2023. ... The next launch opportunity comes on Thursday (March 2) at 12:34 a.m. EST (0534 GMT); weather on Tuesday (Feb. 28), the first possible opportunity before that, is not favorable for launch ...
Launches are separated by dots ( • ), payloads by commas ( , ), multiple names for the same satellite by slashes ( / ). Crewed flights are underlined. Launch failures are marked with the † sign. Payloads deployed from other spacecraft are (enclosed in parentheses).
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