September 6 will be a day packed with space activities. If all goes well, the world will be watching two highly anticipated space missions on Friday: the first is the return of Boeing’s Starliner and the second is the launch of SpaceX’s Polaris Dawn mission.
Here’s everything you need to know about the two missions:
Starliner will return on September 6
Boeing’s Starliner is scheduled to undock from the International Space Station (ISS) and return without its crew. NASA astronauts Sunita Williams and Butch Wilmore – Friday, September 6.
NASA said in a statement on Aug. 30 that Starliner is planned to “autonomously undock” from the space station at around 6:04 p.m. EDT on Friday (or 3:30 a.m. IST on Saturday) “to begin the journey home, weather conditions permitting.”
After undocking, Starliner is expected to take about six hours to reach the landing zone at White Sands Spaceport in New Mexico. Starliner is expected to touch down on Earth around 9:30 a.m. EST on Saturday, Sept. 7.
Meanwhile, Starliner Crew Butch Wilmore and Sunita Williams will remain aboard the space station as part of the Expedition 71/72 crew in NASA Crew-9 Missionaboard the SpaceX Dragon spacecraft, in February 2025.
NASA astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams launched aboard Boeing’s Starliner spacecraft The first manned flight took place on June 5. During the flight, helium leaks were detected in the spacecraft. In addition, problems were also detected with the spacecraft’s reaction control thrusters.
SpaceX’s Polaris Dawn spacecraft launches
The SpaceX Polaris Dawn mission will include the first spacewalk conducted by private citizens.
The Federal Aviation Administration The document indicates The Dawn mission is scheduled to launch at around 1:03 p.m. IST on Friday, September 6, from Kennedy Space Center. An operations plan released by the agency also shows backup opportunities on Saturday and Sunday.
SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket will launch the Polaris Dawn mission from Florida. Dragon and the Polaris Dawn crew will spend up to five days in orbit. SpaceX owner Elon Musk described this mission as “historic.”
The four-member crew of SpaceX The Polaris Dawn mission is staffed entirely by non-professional astronauts. This will be the first crewed spaceflight for mission pilot Kidd Poteet, mission specialist Sarah Gillis, and mission specialist and medical officer Anna Menon. SpaceX said this will also be the first time two SpaceX employees have been part of a crewed spaceflight crew.
During these five days we will work on the following objectives:
The launch was delayed twice in August, initially due to a technical problem with the launch tower and later due to weather constraints that affected the splashdown phase.
“Due to unfavorable weather forecast at Dragon’s splashdown areas off the coast of Florida, SpaceX is canceling Polaris Dawn’s Falcon 9 launch opportunities on Wednesday, August 28, and Thursday, August 29. SpaceX teams will continue to monitor the weather for favorable launch and return conditions,” Polaris Dawn said on its website.
The situation was further complicated by the fact that “a separate SpaceX Falcon 9 mission lost its first booster module, which normally performs a precision vertical landing on an unmanned spacecraft,” Physics.org said.
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