Elon Musks SpaceX set to launch next ISS crew for NASA

Sharjah24 – Reuters: Elon Musk's rocket company SpaceX was set to launch early on Monday the International Space Station's next long-duration team into orbit, with an astronaut from the United Arab Emirates and a Russian cosmonaut joining two NASA crewmates for the flight.

The SpaceX launch vehicle, consisting of a Falcon 9 rocket topped with an autonomously operated Crew Dragon capsule called Endeavour, was set for liftoff at 1:45 a.m. EST (0645 GMT) from NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida.

The four-member crew should reach the International Space Station (ISS) about 25 hours later, on Tuesday morning, to begin a six-month mission in microgravity aboard the orbiting laboratory some 250 miles (420 km) above Earth.

The Crew 6 mission is notable for its inclusion of UAE astronaut Sultan Alneyadi, 41, the second person from his country to fly to space and the first to launch from U.S. soil as part of a long-duration space station team. UAE's first-ever astronaut launched to orbit in 2019 aboard a Russian spacecraft.

Designated Crew 6, the mission marks the sixth long-term ISS team that NASA has flown aboard SpaceX since the private rocket venture founded by Musk - billionaire CEO of electric car maker Tesla TSLA.O and social media platform Twitter - began sending American astronauts to orbit in May 2020.

NASA said the mission's launch readiness review was completed on Saturday, and that the flight was given a "go" to proceed to liftoff as planned.

"All systems and weather are looking good for launch," Musk wrote on Twitter on Sunday.

The latest ISS crew is led by mission commander Stephen Bowen, 59, a onetime U.S. Navy submarine officer who has logged more than 40 days in orbit as a veteran of three space shuttle flights and seven spacewalks.

Fellow NASA astronaut Warren "Woody" Hoburg, 37, an engineer and commercial aviator designated as the Crew 6 pilot, will be making his first spaceflight.