18 with the Turksat 5B communications satellite. The booster stage launched for the first time last June 3 on a cargo mission to the space station, then flew again Nov. The Crew-4 mission launched on a Falcon 9 booster - tail number B0167 - flown on three previous missions. It joins Dragon Endeavour, Dragon Resilience, and Dragon Endurance in the companyвЂ™s inventory. The Dragon Freedom spacecraft is the fourth, and likely last, human-rated vehicle to join SpaceXвЂ™s fleet of reusable Dragon capsules. They will ride SpaceXвЂ™s Dragon Endurance spacecraft back to Earth, leaving the Crew-4 astronauts at the station with three Russian cosmonaut crewmates. The flight plan calls for handover of at least five days between the new Crew-4 astronauts and the outgoing Crew-3 astronauts, who are tentatively scheduled to depart the station around May 4, targeting a splashdown off the coast of Florida around May 5, wrapping up their nearly six-month mission.Д¬ommander Raja Chari, pilot Tom Marshburn, and mission specialists Matthias Maurer and Kayla Barron launched on the Crew-3 mission last November. Lindgren, Hines, Cristoforetti and Watkins will receive briefings from the four astronauts they are replacing on the station. The Crew-4 astronauts are scheduled to arrive at the station for docking at 8:15 p.m. NASA astronaut Jessica Watkins, commander Kjell Lindgren, pilot Bob Hines, and European Space Agency astronaut Samantha Cristoforetti on the tower at pad 39A, with SpaceXвЂ™s Dragon Freedom spacecraft in the background.

вЂњI plan to take a very long luxurious shower on that last day before launch,вЂќ said Cristoforetti, an Italian-born flier poised for her second trip to space. The astronauts have spent the last week at the Kennedy Space Center undergoing final training and flight preps, and spending time with family before their multi-month expedition off the planet. It is SpaceXвЂ™s fourth operational crew rotation flight for NASA under a multibillion-dollar contract. The mission marks the seventh launch of astronauts by SpaceX since the first Dragon flight to carry people. With the successful launch Wednesday, the four-person crew began a mission lasting nearly five months at the space station, performing experiments and maintenance, conducting spacewalks, and continuing nearly 22 years of continuous human presence on the orbiting outpost. European Space Agency astronaut rounds out the crew. Pilot Bob Hines and mission specialist Jessica Watkins, both spaceflight rookies, are joining Lindgren on the mission. Kjell Lindgren, a veteran of 141 days in orbit on a previous flight, commands the Crew-4 mission to the space station. Liftoff from pad 39A occurred at 3:52 a.m. Four astronauts strapped into their seats on SpaceXвЂ™s Dragon Freedom spacecraft and rode a Falcon 9 rocket into orbit early Wednesday from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida, beginning a 16-hour chase of the International Space Station.

Kennedy space center launch