NASA and SpaceX are all set for Saturday’s historic Crew Dragon mission to the International Space Station (ISS).
The Crew-1 mission is heading into the history books for being the first operational astronaut flight using SpaceX’s Crew Dragon spacecraft.
It follows the Crew Dragon’s first successful human test flight to and from the space station over the summer with NASA astronauts Doug Hurley and Bob Behnken. The Demo-2 mission also hit the headlines for being the first astronaut launch from U.S. soil since the end of the Space Shuttle program nine years ago.
As part of the build-up to the launch of Saturday’s highly anticipated six-month mission, the space agency has posted a new video (top) featuring some quick-fire questions aimed at the four-person crew.
In the video, the astronauts — Americans Michael Hopkins, Victor Glover, and Shannon Walker, along with Japan’s Soichi Noguchi — reveal entertaining trivia such as their favorite food, favorite movie, and favorite season. You’ll also get to find out the really important stuff like what they always have in their refrigerator, whether they prefer coffee or tea, and their pet peeve.
And that’s not all. Find out what advice each astronaut would give to their younger self, and how they would spend a day on Mars, if they had the chance.
It’s a fun insight into the minds of the next group of astronauts heading to the ISS for a six-month stay, and is sure to help space fans get to know the crew a little better before Saturday’s launch from Pad 39A the Kennedy Space Center in Florida.
The four astronauts will join NASA’s Kate Rubins and Russian cosmonauts Sergey Ryzhikov and Sergey Kud-Sverchkov aboard the space station, which this month celebrates 20 years of continuous human presence. You can learn more about daily life on the ISS by checking out these videos made by past visitors to the orbiting outpost.
Digital Trends has all the information you need to watch Saturday’s launch live online.
It’s been an incredible year for space missions — check out some of the prominent ones that have taken place so far this year.