NASA to Provide Live Coverage of SpaceX Dragon Spacecraft Docking Port Relocation on Space Station

The four crew members include NASA astronauts Steve Bowen and Woody Hoburg, UAE astronaut Sultan Alneyadi, and Roscosmos cosmonaut Andrey Fedyaev. The relocation will allow for the docking of the next Dragon cargo spacecraft that is set to launch in June. It will also free up Harmony’s space-facing port for the installation of International Space Station Roll-Out Solar Arrays (IROSAs) through a series of spacewalks, as the zenith port on Harmony allows easier access to the Canadarm2 robotic arm.

This port relocation marks the third time a Dragon spacecraft has been relocated by crew members, following similar moves during the Crew-1 and Crew-2 missions. The NASA and SpaceX teams will coordinate the move, with support from ground controllers at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston and SpaceX in Hawthorne, California. Crew-6, targeted to return in August, is the sixth rotational crew mission from NASA and SpaceX under the agency’s Commercial Crew Program.

The relocation is expected to begin at 7:10 a.m. EDT, when the spacecraft will undock from the space-facing port of the station’s Harmony module, and it will dock again at the station’s forward Harmony port at 7:53 a.m. It will be live on https://www.nasa.gov/live

NASA has announced that the upcoming port relocation of the SpaceX Crew-6 spacecraft will be covered live on NASA Television, the agency’s website, and social media platforms. The relocation will be performed by NASA astronauts Steve Bowen and Woody Hoburg, UAE astronaut Sultan Alneyadi, and Roscosmos cosmonaut Andrey Fedyaev. The spacecraft will undock from the space-facing port of the station’s Harmony module and dock again at the station’s forward Harmony port, freeing up the space-facing port for the docking of the next Dragon cargo spacecraft in June.

The relocation process will be supported by ground controllers at Mission Control Center at NASA’s Johnson Space Center and SpaceX in California. This is the third port relocation of a Dragon crew spacecraft, following previous relocations during the Crew-1 and Crew-2 missions. The port relocation will allow for the installation of the International Space Station Roll-Out Solar Arrays (IROSAs), which will arrive on SpaceX’s 28th commercial resupply mission for NASA. The installation will be done through a series of spacewalks.

The SpaceX Crew-6 mission launched on March 2 from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida and docked to the space station on March 3. It is targeted to return in August and is the sixth rotational crew mission from NASA and SpaceX as part of the agency’s Commercial Crew Program. The live coverage of the port relocation is expected to provide insights into the complexity and precision required to operate and maintain the International Space Station.