Crew Dragon commander Mike Hopkins, pilot Victor Glover, and mission specialists Shannon Walker and Soichi Noguchi flew to the Kennedy Space Center on a NASA-chartered private jet Sunday, ready for a final week of training, refresher courses, and some time off before their launch to the International Space Station.
The astronauts arrived at the Florida spaceport shortly before 2 p.m. EST (1900 GMT) Sunday after flying from their home base at the Johnson Space Center in Houston.
Ready for a mission expected to last up to six months, the crew will be the first to fly on an operational mission aboard a SpaceX Crew Dragon capsule.
Hopkins, a 51-year-old U.S. Air Force colonel, will command the Crew Dragon mission. Victor Glover, 44-year-old a U.S. Navy commander, will serve as the spacecraft pilot. NASA astronaut Shannon Walker and Japanese astronaut Soichi Noguchi, both 55, will also ride to the space station on the Crew Dragon spacecraft, named Resilience.
Hopkins and Walker are each veterans of one expedition on the space station, while Noguchi is set for his flight into space. Glover is a rookie space flier.
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