Astronauts aboard the International Space Station plan to find a new docking port for a SpaceX Dragon in order to make way for an uncrewed NASA vehicle on a resupply mission.
The Dragon spacecraft reached the station Sept. 29 with two spacefarers who are part of a commercial mission known as Crew-9. While the SpaceX missions commissioned by NASA have become routine in recent years, this particular venture garnered attention since it involved the vehicle that in February will bring home the Boeing Starliner astronauts.
The capsule, which docked at the space station's Harmony module's forward-facing port, is now set to be relocated Sunday to the module's space-facing port. Such maneuvers have become common at the space station since NASA began its commercial crew program in 2021.
Here's what to know about the re-docking and how to watch it unfold:
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Both the Starliner astronauts – Suni Williams and Butch Wilmore – and the Crew-9 team of Nick Hague and Roscosmos cosmonaut Aleksandr Gorbunov will help to move the Dragon, NASA said in a news release.
The maneuver will begin at 6:35 a.m. EDT with undocking the spacecraft from the Harmony module's forward-facing port. The Dragon is expected to be redocked by 7:18 a.m. at the module's space-facing port, according to NASA.
The module provides international docking adapters on its space-facing and forward ports for commercial crew vehicles like the Dragon. Additionally, the Harmony module both serves as a hub providing air, power and water to the space station, and also acts as an internal connecting port and passageway to science labs and cargo spacecraft.
NASA will provide live coverage of the relocation beginning at 6:15 a.m. EST on NASA+, which will end shortly after docking.
The relocation, which will be assisted by flight controllers at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston and the Mission Control team at SpaceX in California, is necessary to free the forward-facing port for an uncrewed resupply mission.
A SpaceX Dragon bearing the cargo is set to launch no earlier than Monday, according to NASA. The U.S. space agency will also provide coverage of both the Monday night launch and Tuesday morning docking of SpaceX's 31st resupply mission on NASA+.
NASA and SpaceX have overseen four previous undocking and redocking maneuvers of Dragon spacecraft, according to the agency. The first came with the inaugural Crew-1 mission in 2021, while the most recent was in April on the previous Crew-8 mission whose spacefarers only recently returned to Earth.
The Dragon spacecraft is famous as the vehicle selected by NASA to bring home Suni Williams and Butch Wilmore after the agency determined that the Boeing Starliner was unsafe for its crew.
When the Dragon docked late last month, the Crew-9 team of Hague and Gorbunov joined Williams and Wilmore as part of Expedition 72. The four spacefarers will then all return to Earth together in February following the completion of the Crew-9 rotation.
Wilmore and Williams arrived at the station in June aboard the troubled Starliner for what was supposed to be a 10-day stay. But the slew of issues the Starliner encountered after its trip through space prompted NASA to instead send the vehicle back to Earth empty in late September.
NASA and Boeing still hope the Starliner can one day join the Dragon as the space agency's second operational vehicle for crewed missions to the station. For NASA, the regular SpaceX missions have become an integral part of its operations under the commercial crew program, for which the agency has paid out billions of dollars to private companies for missions it once would carry out itself.
Hague and Gorbunov, along with Starliner astronauts Wilmore and Williams, are spending their orbital stay conducting science experiments and performing station maintenance. Much of it will be to prepare for human exploration deep into the cosmos as NASA eyes future lunar missions under its Artemis program.
Eric Lagatta covers breaking and trending news for USA TODAY. Reach him at [email protected]