NASA will launch a crew atop a Falcon 9 in the coming weeks as the SpaceX workhorse returned to flight with three Starlink launches over the weekend.
Watch live: SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket to launch 23 Starlink satellites from NASA's Kennedy Space Center
Steve Stich, NASA's Commercial Crew Program manager, said the plan was to launch by Aug. 18 at the earliest, though the launch window extended into early September. "It's really driven by a turnaround for the Europa Clipper mission," he said.
The date is also being pushed by executives who have a plan and a date to bring back the crew of the Boeing Starliner, which has enjoyed an extended stay on the International Space Station (ISS) while engineers work to understand the problems encountered during the test flight.
Astronauts Sunita "Suni" Williams and Barry "Butch" Wilmore blasted off for a short trip on Starliner on June 5 and arrived at the ISS on June 6 for what was supposed to be an eight-day mission. Crew-8, meanwhile, including NASA astronauts Matthew Dominick, Michael Barratt and Jeanette Epps, and Roscosmos cosmonaut Alexander Grebenkin, has been on the space station since March, conducting scientific research including a study of brain organoids and another on plant growth.
