Crew 11 Beats The Storms, Now Headed To ISS

SpaceX, NASA and the Crew 11 astronauts beat the clouds and rain showers today, but just barely. With dark skies and rain rapidly advancing from the south, liftoff of SpaceX’s 18th crewed flight was at 11:43 AM ET from Launch Complex 39A from Kennedy Space Center. Crew 11’s four astronauts are now on their way the International Space Station, with an expected arrival time at the orbital outpost around 3AM ET tomorrow, August 2.

The countdown today was a near carbon copy of yesterday’s: picture perfect with few if any issues until the last half hour. At that time, with afternoon temperatures rising into what is best called “miserable”, coastal winds started to rise up in the atmosphere, creating clouds that would grow into rain showers and later, thunderstorms. Yesterday, the clouds were too close to LC-39A and caused a launch scrub because of a weather violation. Today, with a Phase 1 lightning issued only minutes before, the burgeoning showers stayed just far enough away to allow the countdown to proceed and liftoff to occur on schedule.

Later, when Booster 1094 returned to Landing Zone 1 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station rather quietly — from the vantage of the KSC Press Site, the descending booster was hidden in the clouds until the very last, appearing only a second or two before it’s final landing burn began. The normal sonic boom was muted too, and was nowhere near as loud as normal. Today’s landing marks the last at Landing Zone 1 as SpaceX prepares to move Falcon 9 landing operations to a new area nearly adjacent to Space Launch Complex 40.

Meanwhile, the second stage and astronauts aboard Crew Dragon Endeavour continued on their way to orbit, which they achieved at the T+ 00:08:46 mark. At T+ 09:36, Crew Dragon separated from Falcon 9’s second stage.

On Their Way To ISS

Now in orbit, Crew 11 will begin chasing down ISS in earnest, with an expected arrival time around 3 AM ET on August 2nd.

After docking, the station’s total crew will climb to 11 for a brief period as they join current occupants: NASA astronauts Anne McClain, Nichole Ayers, and Jonny Kim; JAXA astronaut Takuya Onishi; and Roscosmos cosmonauts Kirill Peskov, Sergey Ryzhikov, and Alexey Zubritsky.

Crew-10, the previous NASA-SpaceX mission, will remain aboard for a short handover after Crew-11 arrives, then return to Earth. Before their departure, mission teams will monitor weather conditions at designated splashdown zones off the California coast to ensure a safe landing.

Crew-11’s mission focuses heavily on scientific research supporting long-duration human spaceflight and applications on Earth. Their work includes simulating lunar landings, studying how to protect astronauts’ vision in space, and advancing human spaceflight research through NASA’s Human Research Program. Additional experiments will explore plant cell division, the impact of microgravity on virus-bacteria interactions, and methods to produce more human stem cells and generate nutrients on demand.