SpaceX ready to launch first all-commercial crew to space station
CBSN
SpaceX and a Houston company are gearing up to launch four private citizens Friday on the first NASA-sanctioned, fully commercial flight to the International Space Station, a key step in a government push to encourage private-sector development on the high frontier.
Mission commander Michael López-Alegría, a former NASA astronaut and now a vice president with Houston-based Axiom Space, along with entrepreneur-philanthropists Larry Connor, Canadian Mark Pathy and Israeli Eytan Stibbe plan to blast off from pad 39A at the Kennedy Space Center at 11:17 a.m. EDT Friday.
Forecasters predicted an 80% chance of acceptable launch-site weather, but SpaceX said it was monitoring potentially rough seas along the Falcon 9's northeasterly trajectory where the crew could be forced to ditch in a launch emergency.
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