The launch of four astronauts on a mission to the International Space Station known as Crew-11 will be the first NASA mission to stream on Netflix.
Texas residents share concerns at SpaceX city meeting
Longtime Texas residents voiced concerns about the leadership and proposed changes to Elon Musk’s new SpaceX city.
- NASA and SpaceX are partners on the Crew missions, which send astronauts to the ISS for months-long scientific expeditions.
- The Crew-11 mission is due to get off the ground no earlier than Thursday, July 31, from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida.
- Viewers have plenty of ways to follow along with NASA’s planned live coverage of both the Falcon 9 launch and Dragon’s arrival at the space station.
The next rocket to launch on a mission transporting astronauts to space is coming to a streaming platform near you.
Two major streaming services – Netflix and Amazon Prime – will provide NASA’s coverage of a mission known as Crew-11 getting off the ground from Florida. While the U.S. space agency’s live cosmic programming has been available on Prime since May, the upcoming mission marks the first launch with astronauts to be broadcast on Netflix – one of the largest streaming platforms in the world.
The four astronauts selected for the Crew-11 mission, a joint venture between NASA and SpaceX, are due to travel to the International Space Station about 250 miles above Earth. At the orbital laboratory, the spacefarers will spend a few months performing scientific research designed to be carried out in microgravity.
But the otherwise routine mission also bears a little more significance: The Crew-11 astronauts will replace the Crew-10 contingent who arrived in mid-March at the space station in a headline-grabbing spaceflight that set the stage to end the infamous Starliner saga.
Here’s what to know about the upcoming launch, as well as how to watch a livestream of the SpaceX rocket get off the ground from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida.
What is Crew-11? What to know about NASA, SpaceX mission
As the name suggests, Crew-11 is NASA and SpaceX’s 11th science expedition to the International Space Station.
The missions, most of which last about six months, are contracted under NASA’s commercial crew program. The program allows the U.S. space agency to pay SpaceX to launch and transport astronauts and cargo to orbit aboard the company’s own vehicles, freeing up NASA to focus on its Artemis lunar program and other spaceflight missions, including future crewed voyages to Mars.
The arrival of the astronauts selected for the Crew-11 mission at the space station will also pave the way for four others to leave. Their Crew-10 predecessors arrived at the ISS in mid-March in a headline-grabbing mission that set the stage for the long-awaited departure of Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams − the NASA astronauts who crewed the ill-fated Boeing Starliner space capsule.
The Crew-10 astronauts – NASA astronauts Nichole Ayers and Anne McClain, Japanese JAXA astronaut Takuya Onishi and Roscosmos cosmonaut Kirill Peskov – will depart a few days after their replacements arrive to make a water landing off the coast of California.
What time is the launch of Crew-11 mission from Florida?
The Crew-11 mission is due to get off the ground no earlier than 12:09 p.m. ET Thursday, July 31, from near Cape Canaveral, Florida, according to NASA.
SpaceX uses its Falcon 9 rocket – one of the most active in the world – to launch the crew missions from Launch Complex 39A at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center. The astronauts themselves ride a Dragon crew capsule – the only U.S. spacecraft capable of carrying astronauts to and from the space station.
The Falcon 9 accelerates to approximately 17,500 miles per hour after liftoff before the Dragon separates in orbit to use its own thrusters to power its way to the space station. NASA and SpaceX mission control will monitor a series of maneuvers guiding Dragon to the Earth-facing port of the station’s Harmony module, where it is expected to dock autonomously around 3 a.m. ET Saturday, Aug. 2, according to NASA.
How to watch livestream of Crew-11 launch on Netflix, Prime
Viewers have plenty of ways to follow along with NASA’s planned live coverage of both the Falcon 9 launch and Dragon’s arrival at the space station.
Launch coverage begins at 8 a.m. ET Thursday, July 31, on NASA+, the U.S. agency’s free streaming platform. Content through NASA+ is available to watch on desktop from the agency’s official site and YouTube channel, and can be downloaded as a mobile app on smartphones.
NASA has also recently made all of the platform’s content available on Amazon Prime and Netflix.
NASA+ made its debut in May on Prime’s live channels, available to users even without a subscription.
But viewers will need a Netflix subscription to view NASA content on the popular platform, which boasts a global audience of 700 million people. Viewers should be able to find live NASA+ content in the Netflix interface alongside other popular series.
A post-launch news conference is scheduled to take place at 1:30 p.m. ET and will be available only on NASA’s YouTube channel.
NASA+ coverage is scheduled to resume around 1 a.m. ET Saturday, Aug. 2, as the Dragon approaches and docks at the space station, followed by the hatch opening around 5:30 a.m. to allow the crew to enter the station and greet the other astronauts.
Who are the astronauts on the Crew-11 mission?
The Crew-11 mission includes four spacefarers:
- Mission commander Zena Cardman, a NASA astronaut from Virginia
- Pilot Mike Fincke, a NASA astronaut from Pennsylvania
- Mission specialist Kimiya Yui, a Japanese astronaut with the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA)
- Mission specialist Oleg Platonov, a Russian Roscosmos cosmonaut
Eric Lagatta is the Space Connect reporter for the USA TODAY Network. Reach him at elagatta@gannett.com