SpaceX to launch NASA's Crew-5 mission to ISS on October 5; here's how to watch live

SpaceX is all set to launch NASA’s Crew-5 mission on October 5 from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida to the International Space Station. The launch is scheduled at 9:30 pm IST and SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket will lift off with the Dragon spacecraft Endurance with four astronauts on board. According to NASA, the docking of the spacecraft to the space station will take place at 2:27 am IST.

How to watch the launch live?

NASA will air the launch live on its webcast and you can watch the pre-launch activities starting at 6 pm IST. The webcast will be available on NASA’s official YouTube channel, NASA TV, NASA app and other social media handles. Live coverage of the docking will also be provided followed by the opening of the Dragon spacecraft’s hatch and the entry of the astronauts into the ISS.

About the Crew-5 mission

The Crew-5 mission includes four members which include two from NASA namely Josh Cassada and Nicole Mann, one from Russia– Anna Kikina and one from Japan– Koichi Wakata. The quartet will fly to the space station for a roughly six-month-long mission and conduct a range of science experiments in microgravity during the entire period of time. 

The Crew-5 makes part of the Expedition team and they will join NASA astronaut Frank Rubio and Roscosmos’ Sergey Prokopyev and Dmitri Petelin who arrived at the orbital outpost on September 21. 

Rubio boarded a Russian spacecraft for his trip under the cross-flight agreement between Roscomos and NASA. In return, NASA is sending Russia’s Anna Kikina in a US-made commercial spacecraft which would make her the first cosmonaut to do so. Once the Expedition 68 team assembles, astronauts of the Expedition 67 crew, some of which are still in space, will vacate the ISS in the coming days. 

Four astronauts– Kjell Lindgren, Robert Hines, Jessica Watkins and Samantha Christoforetti– are still aboard the ISS and will return after the arrival of Crew-5. Meanwhile, this mission would see SpaceX transport astronauts for NASA for the fifth time since it won a contract from the latter after its successful Demo-2 flight in 2020.