Crew-4 Still Go for Very Pre-Dawn Launch

At the time of this writing, the Crew-4 mission to the ISS is still go for an early Wednesday morning (3:52 AM local time) launch from the Kennedy Space Center's Pad 39A.  The last report was the forecast had a 90% chance of acceptable weather.  A liftoff at 3:52 AM is early enough that some of those "weird and wonderful" visuals we've seen an hour or so before sunrise aren't likely, but night launches are generally pretty to watch.  

On Saturday, with the schedule understood but before the Ax-1 mission had left the Space Station, NASA's Kathy Lueders had said that the 39 hours between the end of the Ax-1 mission and the scheduled liftoff time should be enough to review the data and determine if there's anything that needed to be addressed before Crew-4.  Apparently, she was right. 

Half a day after Axiom-1’s safe splashdown, NASA, SpaceX, and other involved parties completed the final launch readiness review (LRR) for the agency’s fourth operational Crew Dragon astronaut transport mission. Emphasizing just how well-oiled that ‘machine’ has become after less than two years of crewed launch operations, Crew-4 is scheduled to launch ... less than 40 hours after Axiom-1’s return to Earth.  

Crew-4 will carry three NASA astronauts: Commander Kjell Lindgren, Pilot Bob Hines, and Mission Specialist Jessica Watkins, and European Space Agency Mission Specialist Samantha Cristoforetti to the station.  They're riding Crew Dragon Freedom for their trip into space, and will dock with the ISS within a day.  There will be the normal change of shift (crew) briefings between Crew-3 and 4, and the Crew-3 team is expected to depart the ISS after five days.  Crew-3 has been on the ISS since early November.   

Ars Technica provided a little perspective I haven't seen anywhere else. 

SpaceX now has a fleet of four Crew Dragon vehicles: Endeavour, Resilience, Endurance, and Freedom. Company officials have said that, for now, SpaceX does not intend to build any more Crew Dragons. On Monday, the company's director of human spaceflight programs, Benji Reed, said he thinks SpaceX can presently support as many as six human spaceflights a year. This is a likely breakdown of those missions:

• Two NASA flights to the International Space Station (until Boeing's Starliner vehicle becomes operational, and then this number would be one)
• Two private astronaut missions to the International Space Station, backed by Axiom Space or other private companies
• Two free-flying missions, such as the Inspiration4 and Polaris flights

[Jessica] Jensen, [vice president of customer operations and integration at SpaceX], said SpaceX is determined to continue flying humans into space safely despite the rapid turnaround. "As exciting as this is, and as busy as everyone has been talking about, I just want to reiterate that safety is still and always the top priority," she said.

Crew-4: l-r NASA's Jessica Watkins, Bob Hines and Kjell Lindgren and Samantha Cristoforetti of the European Space Agency. SpaceX image from Space.com