SpaceX Crew-3 Astronauts Enter Quarantine for Mission to Space Station
NASA astronauts Raja Chari, Tom Marshburn, and Kayla Barron, and ESA (European Space Agency) astronaut Matthias Maurer, entered their official quarantine period beginning Saturday, Oct. 16, in preparation for their flight to the International Space Station on NASA’s SpaceX Crew-3 mission. They will lift off at 2:43 a.m. EDT Saturday, Oct. 30, aboard the SpaceX Dragon Endurance, atop the company’s Falcon 9 rocket from Launch Complex 39A at the agency’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida.
For crews preparing to launch, “flight crew health stabilization” is a routine part of the final preparations for all missions to the space station. Spending the final two weeks before liftoff in quarantine will help ensure the Crew-3 crew is healthy, protecting themselves and the astronauts already on the space station.
If they are able to maintain quarantine conditions at home, crew members can choose to quarantine from there until they travel to Kennedy. If they are unable to maintain quarantine conditions at home — for example, if a household member can’t maintain quarantine because of job or school requirements — they have the option of living in the Astronaut Quarantine Facility at Johnson Space Center until they leave for Kennedy.
Some additional safeguards have been added because of the coronavirus. Anyone who will come on-site or interact with the crew during the quarantine period, as well as any VIPs, will be screened for temperature and symptoms. Chari, Marshburn, Barron, and Maurer, as well as those in direct, close contact with the crew, will be tested twice for the virus as a precaution.
Crew-3 astronauts will become the third crew to fly a full-duration mission to the space station on Dragon for a six-month stay on the orbiting laboratory. They are scheduled to arrive at the space station 22 hours later at 12:30 a.m. EDT Sunday, Oct. 31, for a short overlap with NASA astronauts Shane Kimbrough and Megan McArthur, Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) astronaut Akihiko Hoshide, and ESA astronaut Thomas Pesquet, who flew to the station as part of the agency’s SpaceX Crew-2 mission in April 2021. Also on board are Mark Vande Hei, NASA astronaut and Pytor Dubrov, cosmonaut of the Russian space agency Roscosmos who flew to the station on a Soyuz spacecraft for Expedition 65 in April 9, 2021, and Anton Shkaplerov, cosmonaut of the Russian space agency who flew to the station on a Soyuz spacecraft Oct. 5, 2021.
More details about the mission and NASA’s Commercial Crew Program can be found in the press kit online and by following the commercial crew blog, @commercial_crew and commercial crew on Facebook.
