Fly Around SpaceX’s Crew Dragon at the Launchpad with the Drone Video

SpaceX’s next astronaut launch for NASA is just a day away from liftoff and you can catch a close-up look at the mission’s rocket on the Launchpad in a new Drone Video.

A SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket is scheduled to launch four astronauts to the International Space Station on the Crew-2 mission later today. With dark clouds and a yellow sky adding some dramatic lighting, the new drone video pans slowly around Pad 39A showing SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket and its Crew Dragon Endeavour Spacecraft. The big structure looming beside the rocket is the gantry tower for electrical and consumable connections.

The tower is precariously allowing the four astronauts to have prior access to the spacecraft just before the launch. The Crew-2 mission team includes NASA astronauts Shane Kimbrough and Megan McArthur, the European Space Agency’s Thomas Pesquet, and the Japanese Aerospace Agency’s Akihiko Hoshide. All four astronauts have been to the International Space station on previous missions and have a good overview of how the situation might pan out. The new drone video would help the researchers and the scientists on the Earth having regular updates about the mission and also they would be able to track the spacecraft.

“It’s awesome to be here at Kennedy Space Center,” Kimbrough, the Crew-2 mission commander said to the media on the same day as the launch dress rehearsal on Sunday, April 18. “We’ve had some training already this morning, yesterday we got to go out to the pad to see the rocket and our spacecraft which is really exciting for us.”SpaceX’s is busy figuring out its flight manifest with NASA, with Crew-3 already in the sights of launch and liftoff later this year on October 23. The advancements in the current mission would be beneficial for the next missions, and that’s why the drone plan got instilled.