SpaceX Crew Dragon cleared for launch to space station next week

After an all-day review, NASA and SpaceX tentatively cleared a refurbished Crew Dragon spacecraft and Falcon 9 rocket for launch next Thursday to ferry a three-man, one-woman crew to the International Space Station.

It will be the third piloted flight to orbit from U.S. soil since the shuttle's retirement in 2011 and the second operational Crew Dragon flight as NASA moves away from sole reliance on Russian Soyuz spacecraft to carry astronauts to and from low-Earth orbit. Pending resolution of one presumably minor technical issue, liftoff from historic pad 39A at the Kennedy Space Center is targeted for 6:11 a.m. ET on April 22, which also happens to be Earth Day, kicking off a 23-hour rendezvous with the space station.