As his year-long mission aboard the International Space Station draws to a close, Expedition 46 commander Scott Kelly of NASA gives a final in-flight news conference with U.S. media on Feb. 25. Kelly and cosmonauts Mikhail Kornienko and Sergey Volkov are preparing for their return to Earth on March 1, U.S. time, aboard the Soyuz TMA-18M spacecraft.
Falcon 9
SpaceX’s Crew Dragon ready for first test flight
SpaceX’s first Crew Dragon spacecraft, fixed to the forward end of a Falcon 9 rocket, emerged Thursday from the company’s hangar at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida for the quarter-mile journey to its launch mount at pad 39A, where liftoff is scheduled early Saturday on a critical test flight before astronauts strap into the ship later this year.
Antares Launcher
Live coverage: Cygnus supply ship arrives at space station
Falcon 9
SpaceX crew launch comes with new weather constraints for downrange aborts
Mission managers will be closely monitoring the weather for the first launch of astronauts aboard SpaceX’s Crew Dragon spacecraft, not just around the Kennedy Space Center, but along a corridor stretching thousands of miles across the Atlantic Ocean in case the crew capsule has to escape from its Falcon 9 rocket during the climb into orbit.