The Flight Readiness Review (FRR) for NASA’s SpaceX Crew-8 mission to the International Space Station has concluded, and teams are proceeding toward a planned liftoff at 12:04 a.m. EST on Friday, March 1, from Launch Complex 39A at the agency’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida.
NASA will hold a media teleconference at 7:30 p.m. EST to discuss the outcome of the review. Listen live on NASA’s website.
Participants in the teleconference are:
- Ken Bowersox, associate administrator, Space Operations Mission Directorate, NASA Headquarters
- Steve Stich, manager, NASA’s Commercial Crew Program, Kennedy
- Joel Montalbano, manager, International Space Station Program, NASA’s Johnson Space Center
- Emily Nelson, chief flight director, NASA’s Johnson Space Center
- William Gerstenmaier, vice president, Build and Flight Reliability, SpaceX
- Eric van der Wal, Houston office team leader, ESA (European Space Agency)
- Takayoshi Nishikawa, director, JAXA (Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency) Houston Office
Later tonight, SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket and Dragon spacecraft, named Endeavour, will roll out to the pad at Launch Complex 39A. On Tuesday, Feb. 27, the crew will participate in a rehearsal of launch day activities ahead of an integrated static fire test in preparation for liftoff.
NASA astronauts Matthew Dominick, commander; Michael Barratt, pilot; Jeanette Epps, mission specialist; along with Roscosmos cosmonaut Alexander Grebenkin, mission specialist, will fly to the International Space Station aboard the Dragon spacecraft. As part of the agency’s Commercial Crew Program, Crew-8 marks the ninth human spaceflight mission on SpaceX’s Dragon spacecraft and the eighth crew rotation mission to the space station since 2020.
Details about the mission and NASA’s Commercial Crew Program can be found by following the Crew-8 blog, the commercial crew blog, X, and Facebook.