Tomorrow evening (Sunday) Shannon Walker, Victor Glover, Michael Hopkins, and Soichi Noguchi (pictured from left to right)...the last from Japan's Aerospace Exploration Agency...are scheduled to take off from the Kennedy Space Center at Cape Canaveral, Florida in SpaceX's Crew Dragon craft, at the top of the Falcon 9 rocket as it represents the second manned flight launched from United States soil this year, after the earlier successful May 30th launch which returned August 2nd. Like that mission, this one will transport the astronauts to the International Space Station...the plan is for them to stay there until their return to Earth in the spring. The launch was delayed from October 31st due to engine issues within the Falcon 9 rocket, and then again from tonight's planned launch because of concerns that high winds would interfere with booster rocket recovery...tomorrow's launch time is set for 7:27 pm Eastern Time. I'm going to try to see it from my backyard here in northern Gainesville if the weather permits. I am gratified that America is gearing back up again for space exploration with astronauts and look forward to future missions to the moon and Mars. Hopefully, the incoming Biden administration won't mess with our space objectives and allow a continuity of missions that has been sorely lacking in the past whenever one president left office and another stepped in. And what about that Space Force begun under Trump? We'll see...
The above picture of the four astronauts on this flight is a public domain release by NASA that appeared in the pertinent Wikipedia article...
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