NASA’s SpaceX Crew-5 mission to the International Space Station will be highlighted at two press briefings on Thursday, August 4, at the Johnson Space Center in Houston. It’s NASA’s fifth crew rotation flight using a U.S. commercial spacecraft with a crew on board for a research mission inside the microgravity laboratory.
At 12:30 PM EDT, the agency will hold a mission overview news conference, and at 2 PM EDT, the crew news conference. On NASA Television, the NASA app, and the organization’s website, both will be shown live. After 3 p.m., the crew will also be accessible for individual interviews.
NASA astronauts Nicole Mann and Josh Cassada, JAXA astronaut Koichi Wakata, and Roscosmos cosmonaut Anna Kikina will all be on board the Crew-5 mission. No early than September 29, the Falcon 9 rocket and the Dragon Endurance spacecraft are expected to lift out from Launch Complex 39A at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida.
Crew-5 astronauts will be available for a limited number of interviews.
Mann’s first space mission since becoming an astronaut in 2013 will be this one. She will be in charge of all aspects of flight, from takeoff through re-entry, in her capacity as mission commander. On the space station, she will work as a flight engineer for Expedition 68. On Twitter, she goes by the handle @AstroDuke.
Native American, Mann was born in Petaluma, California. She graduated with a mechanical engineering bachelor’s degree from the U.S. Naval Academy and a mechanical engineering master’s degree with a focus in fluid mechanics from Stanford University. She was a test pilot for the F/A-18 Hornet and Super Hornet while serving as a colonel in the U.S. Marine Corps.
Cassada’s maiden flight since being chosen as an astronaut in 2013 will also be on this mission. He will be in charge of the spacecraft’s systems and performance as the pilot. He will work as an Expedition 68 flight engineer on the space station.
Cassada is a physicist and test pilot for the United States Navy who was raised in White Bear Lake, Minnesota. Prior to joining the Navy, Cassada completed his undergraduate studies in physics at Albion College in Albion, Michigan, and his doctoral studies in experimental high energy physics at Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory in Illinois. On Twitter, follow @astro josh.
