NASA/SpaceX Spacecraft ‘Resilience’ To Launch Saturday

If all goes as planned, Saturday, Nov. 14 at 07:49 EST (00:49 UTC) four astronauts, three from NASA and one from the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA), will launch aboard the SpaceX Crew Dragon “Resilience” spacecraft to the ISS. Four-person flights aboard NASA-contracted vehicles for six-month stays will become the new normal. During the period of sole reliance upon the Roscosmos Soyuz system, the normal staffing of the ISS had been limited to a total crew of six (due to the maximum Soyuz crew size of three). Success of the SpaceX system, and hopefully next year also the Boeing Starliner system, will allow ISS staffing with crews of seven as normal. This is very important because scientific research at the ISS in recent years has been constrained by reduced crew sizes. At various times it has been estimated that the virtual work of maintaining the equipotential of the ISS systems requires full-time attention of two astronauts aboard, so adding a seventh astronaut could be said to increase the scientific research potential of the facility by roughly 25%.