Okay.
Cool.
Very cool.
Good choice.
Yeah,
we like that.
Megan.
Yeah.
Good afternoon, everyone, and thank you all so much
for joining us out here this afternoon at NASA's Kennedy Space Center.
We're here live in Florida.
As we welcome the arrival of NASA's SpaceX crew, nine crew members,
commander Nick Hague and mission specialist cosmonaut Alexander Gorman off.
This will be their last stop before they launch as a two crew member flight aboard
a SpaceX Dragon to the International Space Station
no earlier than September 26th.
I know we are all very eager to talk to the crew,
but before we do so, I want to pass it off to Kennedy Space Center
Deputy Director Kelvin Manning for opening remarks.
Thanks, Reagan.
Good afternoon.
It's great to be here and seeing everybody.
What a day to welcome these two amazing
crew members to the world's most premier spaceport.
Our spaceport has supported over 60 launches this year.
Each one unique, each one important, and each one exciting.
But despite the frequency of these launches, they are never routine.
In a moment, we will welcome Nick and Alexander, who will be part
of the agency's ninth operational crew rotation mission with fellow astronauts
Butch and Sonny aboard our amazing International Space Station.
But before that, I would like to take a moment
to recognize our incredible NASA and SpaceX team
whose diligence and dedication to this mission started months ago.
Your commitment to the mission and the people supporting it
do not go unnoticed, and we are grateful for all of you.
All the grown ups.
Preparations for crew nine mission will culminate on launch day,
but we still have a busy days.
Busy days ahead of us as we go through our final preparations.
In addition to the crew's arrival, our teams will also gather on Monday
for the flight readiness review ahead of the launch.
This launch will mark the first time a human spaceflight mission
will liftoff from Space Launch Complex 40, and our NASA and SpaceX
teams have been working hand in hand with our Space Force mission partners.
And together, we are looking forward to a successful launch.
We're excited to welcome back to the Kennedy Space Center
astronaut Nick Hague, who will serve as commander for this mission,
and Roscosmos cosmonaut and mission specialist Alexander Gorman. Off.
Greeting these astronauts on the runway always gets me excited.
And it makes it means we're in the final days
before a human spaceflight launch, and that's always something very special.
But before we hear from the crew, I'd like to introduce someone whose leadership
has been instrumental to the success of the Commercial Crew program.
As we launch humans to the International Space Station from American soil,
serving as a commercial crew, deputy program manager here at the Kennedy
Space Center, please join me in welcoming Dana Hutchinson.
Dana.
Good afternoon, everyone.
Thank you for being here.
And thank you for your interest in this mission and in our program.
I'm Dana Hutcherson, deputy program manager
for Commercial crew program here at Kennedy Space Center.
I'm very excited to be here today welcoming Nick Hague and Alexander Corbin
off as they prepare for launch on NASA's crew
nine mission on SpaceX's rocket.
As Kelvin mentioned, this will be the first human spaceflight
off of slick four day Space Launch Complex 40 over on the Cape side.
I'm extremely proud of this joint Commercial Crew program
and SpaceX team for all the hard work it took to get the pad certified in time.
This is a huge increase in capability for us with two pads
now rated for human spaceflight.
We now have operational flexibility with space
to do conflict launches at both 39 A and slick 40.
Hague
and Gorman off will launch to the space station
aboard SpaceX's Dragon spacecraft, named freedom.
This, Dragon previously flew on crew four
and axioms axioms two and three mission.
So this will be the fourth flight for this Dragon.
The crew will spend about five months aboard the station, performing
more than 200 critical science and research investigations
that will help us explore beyond low Earth orbit.
Very exciting as we get in the final preparations
for this, for this launch, and to be here today
as our teams are preparing their final preparations for a launch.
We're looking forward to getting these two crew members up into space.
And with that, I'm going to hand it over to the crew.
Thank you.
Yeah.
Good afternoon. And, thank you, Kelvin.
Thank you. Dana.
It is exciting to be here, to take that next step
to make final preparations and, and get ready to launch in a few days.
I want to echo Kelvin's, words.
It is been spectacular to be part of such an amazing team,
especially over the last couple of months.
They've been fairly dynamic, and the team has allowed us,
to respond to those changes in the mission and, and prepare us,
the space team, the NASA team, have worked
diligently preparing us to get ready to launch as a two person crew.
Our crewmates, Zena and Stephanie, have been integral to that effort
over the past several weeks, making sure that we're ready to launch together.
Testament to their professionalism and, we're excited.
We're ready.
Alex I'll turn it over to Alex for a few words. So.
Good day, Everybody
I am really excited to be here at Kennedy Space Center.
It's a historic place.
And it means that the launch is getting nearer and nearer.
And of course, I can't
wait for the launch, to fly on the Dragon vehicle
and to become, part of the ISS crew
within the expedition 72.
As we, talking in front of you right now,
there are hundreds of people from the NASA and SpaceX,
working on preparing the launch pad, preparing the rocket for our launch.
So I would like to express my deepest gratitude to all of them,
And of course, I would like to also express my thanks to the training teams
at NASA and SpaceX and at,
GCTC, who spent hundreds of hours
training us and making sure that we succeed in our mission.
And I have no doubt that we will thank you so much.
All right.
Thank you so much, crew.
We're now going to jump into our media Q&A portion.
We have a microphone up at the front, so please line up.
If you'd like to ask the crew
a question, we ask that you limit yourself to one question each.
So when you get up to the microphone, please state your name,
your media affiliation and who your question is directed to.
Marsha Knapp for you, Nick, as commander, it's
not often a mission changes as drastically and suddenly as yours has described.
What it's like has been like on a personal level for you these past few weeks.
And you do you feel more urgency and responsibility
now that your number one job is to bring Butch and Sunny home safely?
You know, there have been a lot of changes to our particular,
spacecraft, you know, crew.
But the mission really hasn't changed.
The mission hasn't changed for two and a half decades.
It's to get up to the station and do do research.
And, that mission is bigger than any one crew.
So we respond to the dynamic nature of
of what we need to do, and we're asked to step up to that.
So it's it's been a treat to be part of the team and see how they've responded.
And come together and help us adapt how we operate inside the vehicle
to be able to do this.
And so I'm just really thankful to be part of all of that.
Thank you for doing this.
I'm Ken Kramer from SpaceX up close.
So my question is for both of you. I'm a scientist.
I'd like to hear about some of the science experiments
you find that are the most interesting that you're going to be doing.
And anything with the human body.
Also, will you be doing any Eva spacewalks?
And for Alexander, will you be operating the, European robotic arm?
So let's hear for both of you.
Thank you.
Yes, indeed.
We have a lot of science, projects and programs planned for our mission,
and one of the very interesting experiments that I'm particularly,
excited about is melting different crystals in a special oven.
And we are going to be as part of like as part of this experiment,
you get various crystal structures that is impossible to get on Earth.
So we'll get them back and, we'll be able to study them.
Yes, indeed.
As far as the European robotic arm area is concerned that I will be supporting
because they, there is an Eva scheduled for December, so I'll be part of that.
Thank you.
Yeah.
Getting to be part of the science is is where the funds at.
And and in a very personal way, we get to participate
in many of those experiments as a test subject.
And so
a lot of those are looking at health, how the body is regulating its temperature,
how how being in microgravity affects my blood flow or how my DNA works.
And so all of those are going to be fun to be part of.
You asked about spacewalks.
You know, we're planning on doing some spacewalks.
The content of that is still coming together.
Obviously, we were hoping to do some spacewalks
this summer and that didn't didn't work out.
Sometimes the science and spacewalks overlap a little bit.
And one of the things I have had training in the NBL to, to be ready
to do is to go and help fix the nicer experiment, our X-ray observatory.
And so that could potentially be part of some of the spacewalk content.
Thank you.
Welcome.
Hi folks.
This is Charles Boyer from Florida media.
Now, question for you mainly, Nick, how will you integrate
your crew, nine members, once you get on station?
And will you be the one training them on safe Dragon operation?
Thank you.
Yeah.
We're going to launch as a two person crew,
and then we're going to land as a four person crew.
And one of the unique challenges of that is how do we integrate
the other two crew members into the Dragon operations,
when they've had very minimal dragon training before they launched?
The teams on the ground have helped not only get us ready,
but they've already started helping Butch and Sonny, trying to understand
what they're going to need to do inside of inside of the Dragon,
but that's going to be top priority when we get there.
And while we have a period of handover, the first week or so, is
is having that dedicated time to help them understand
what they're going to need to do to operate as as part of the crew.
Nine crew.
I will Robert Smith with Spaceflight Now.
Good to see you both again.
Looking at the mission patch behind you on the display, notice
no one's name is on there.
And so I wanted to sort of building off of some of the previous questions
ask about crew cohesion and sort of how you build that,
where normally you'd have,
you know, months if not longer on the ground
and in a various type of environment
to get to know one another and sort of build that,
bonding experience, sort of if that's sort of symbolic
of this being sort of a fresh slate, perhaps are just
your thoughts on on that and building cohesion with people that,
you know, if you've not been in proximity with leading up to this? Thank you.
Yeah.
The lack of names on the patch, I think
is emblematic of, like I said before,
this mission is bigger than any one crew.
It's bigger than any one person.
And so,
we've got a dynamic challenge ahead of us.
And and it in the response to how do we adjust
and how do we adapt to do the mission that we've got to do?
I've never felt closer to my my crew mates.
I've, you know, that bond that you've built,
you know, that we built for the better part of a year and a half with Xena.
And Stephanie was as strong as ever
as they're working side by side with us, helping, getting us ready.
And then, you know, we don't just train together when we're assigned.
We train together before that.
And so I've had opportunities to work with Butch and Sonny.
I've, I've had opportunities to to train as part of NOLs
and share a tent with Sonny for ten days in the wilderness.
And so, so we know each other and and we're professionals
and we step up and do what's asked of us.
So, I'm looking forward to working with them.
And I think we're going to pull together without a problem.
Hi, I'm Doctor
Walk from Embry-Riddle, reporting for Earth. Sky.
I just am curious of how a higher education has played
a part in your journey to get here.
Well, indeed, education has played a great role in bringing me
where I am right now because I graduated from the Moscow
Aviation Institute and I was specializing in rocket
engineering, spacecraft
engineering, specializing in booster rockets.
And actually, after I graduated,
I worked for quite some time at
That's a, corporation that basically builds booster rockets.
And I was all the time around engineers and on my colleagues.
And I was thinking, hey, SpaceX doesn't seem so far anymore.
It's reachable.
And then there were cosmonauts around me and I'm like, why don't I try?
And that's where I am now.
Hello guys,
my name is Astro with SpaceX Co and my question is, what has training been
like up to the fly with the crew members compared to the four crew members?
And are you guys still in touch with Stephanie and Zena at the moment?
So when you look at how we would traditionally break up the roles
and responsibilities in a four person crew, we're able to balance
that across the mission specialist as well as the pilot and the commander.
And and so the, the adaptation we've had to make is
how do we take those responsibilities and divide that amongst just two of us?
And some of that has is, is how you respond to emergencies.
A lot of that we practice over and over.
How do I respond to a potential fire
or how would I respond to a potential depressurization event?
And in those moments, you want to be able to respond reflexively
without a lot of coordination.
So everybody already understands their role and responsibility
so that you can be safe.
And so we've in the past three weeks, had to adapt
that response and ingrain that response so that we're ready.
If you know something unfortunately like that would happen,
we're going to be able to keep ourselves safe.
That's that's the principal challenge.
Hello.
My name is John Mcconaghy with the Avion at Embry-Riddle.
My question is what remaining challenges,
if any, does the team have to work through with SpaceX?
Launch Complex 40 and what will your remaining training look like with that?
So launching from 640 is something new.
It's new and exciting.
And so in the final preparations leading up to launch,
one of the things we're going to have to do is go out and do some familiarization,
with the emergency egress equipment on on slick 40.
Previously in July, we were out and we were able to do that
for pad 39 A the mission changed.
We changed pads. And so now we're working off slick 40.
So that'll spend a couple hours over the next couple days,
going out and making sure that we know how to use the systems that are in place.
Hi, I'm Dominic Popolo from the Avion to Embry-Riddle.
So my question is,
where do you see
the future of human spaceflight going with the International Space Station
and the opening of the new launchpad and other advancements made?
Well, I think this new capability, this new launch pad,
gives us more maneuverability, less scheduling conflict.
And it will be able to launch easier
And of course, it's probably going to have
a positive effect on the operations on board the ISS.
So the crew are going to be changing out regularly, with no interruptions.
So, it will have a very positive effect on the ISS.
If I was going to add something in a, in a in a broader sense,
where are we going with all of this change?
It's exciting because it's more inclusive.
We have international this foundation of international cooperation
and collaboration that we've we've been doing on the ES
for the last two and a half decades.
And, and now that's starting to extend into the commercial sector.
And all of this is increasing capability.
And and having been there and having seen the Earth from the cupola,
the more people that can see that vantage point, the better off
we're all going to be.
Hi, I'm Ashton, guitar with Daytona State College.
So given the high degree of change that the architecture for this
mission has seen already, how do you think this is going to teach
NASA and SpaceX moving forward to handle more of a dynamic situation
when it comes to, you know, changing the schedules of the crew,
rotations of different missions?
I think if you look at the
history of human spaceflight, the constant is change.
There's there's always something that is changing.
Maybe this time
it's been a little more visible to to the public, the general public.
But there are always changes
that are happening, and we're always responding to the, to the
needs of the mission and the demands of the environment.
And so I think the result of us being ready to launch
is just a testament that the systems, the teams, the people
they know how to respond to change already.
And this is an example of of us doing just that,
getting.
Hi, how are you doing?
Adam Bernstein for Spaceflight Now.
Given that Alexander
is serving as mission specialist and not pilot for the trip to the ISS,
what are his responsibilities during the trip to the space station?
And what is the breakdown of responsibilities
for the four member crew on the return trip?
Probably to Nick.
Yeah.
So so the the the crew complement, essentially, we're flying without a pilot.
And so fundamentally the commander's responsible for keeping the crew safe,
keeping the vehicle safe and making sure we get the mission done.
And so those responsibilities haven't changed how we delegate out all the other
associated things are, are, are kind of up to the commander to decide.
And so Alex is going to be working to support me during all the dynamic
phases of flight and, and provide me with a and the extra set of eyes,
the extra set of hands that that I would need
and that I would leverage if I had a pilot sitting next to me.
So in that way, it's not very different.
Hi, doctor Walker reporting for Earth. Sky.
I just have a follow up question.
What advice would you give current students
who are aspiring to be in the position that you are now?
So basic advice is you find your passion.
Find that thing that really excites you and get you energized,
and then pursue that passion.
And that's going to open so many doors.
And and it's,
you know, you're asking a question that following up
from education and what that means that that foundation
of that passion begins in education and learning everything that you can about
what is it that something special that you want to learn all about?
For Alex and I, it happens to be the same thing.
I studied how to build spacecraft and how to build rockets,
and that's what all my degrees are in.
So you can tell what we're passionate about. If.
But that's not the only thing that you you know, you don't have to study
that in order to want to fly to space and be able to fly to space.
It takes a dynamic team, a diverse team.
And and we're going through a selection process right now
to select a new class of of astronaut candidates at NASA.
And I can tell you that there is no one path to get there.
We're just looking for exceptional people that that work well in teams.
And people want to be around.
Oh, hi.
Marcia Dunn - AP - again.
What are Butch and Sunny telling you ahead of once?
You've surely been in touch with them?
And are they making any special requests for you to bring things?
So we have been in touch with with Butch and Sunny.
They are excited for us to get there, and they have made special requests.
I'm doing my best to, to to answer those requests,
but we'll see how it goes.
I'll keep you guessing.
Yeah.
All right.
Thank you again so much to the crew.
And thank you again to all the media.
And for those of you who caught this broadcast on NASA.
Plus, I know it's a gorgeous day out
here, and a lot of you are missing some much desired boat time.
So we'll let you go and enjoy the rest of your day. Thank you.