![The SpaceX Crew-1 official crew portrait with (from left) NASA astronauts Shannon Walker, Victor Glover, Mike Hopkins, and JAXA (Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency) astronaut Soichi Noguchi.](https://blogs-stage-old.nasawestprime.com/spacestation/wp-content/uploads/sites/240/2021/05/blog_jsc2020e032979.jpg)
Watch live coverage now on NASA TV and the agency’s website as undocking preparations are underway for the return of NASA’s SpaceX Crew-1 mission with Michael Hopkins, Victor Glover, and Shannon Walker of NASA, and Soichi Noguchi of the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) from the International Space Station.
NASA and SpaceX are targeting 8:35 p.m. EDT for Crew Dragon to autonomously undock from the space station, with four international crew members aboard the spacecraft, and return to Earth.
Almost six-and-a-half hours later, after jettisoning its trunk and re-entering Earth’s atmosphere, Crew Dragon will splash down in the Gulf of Mexico off the coast of Florida about 2:57 a.m. EDT on Sunday, May 2. The primary splashdown target is Panama City, Florida.
NASA’s SpaceX Crew-1 return coverage is as follows (all times are Eastern):
Saturday, May 1
- 6 p.m. – NASA TV coverage begins for 6:20 p.m. hatch closure
- 8:15 p.m. – NASA TV coverage begins for 8:35 p.m. undocking
Sunday, May 2
- 2:57 a.m. (approx.) – Splashdown (NASA TV will provide continuous coverage from undocking to splashdown and crew recovery)
- 5 a.m. – Return to Earth news conference at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston, with the following participants:
- Kathy Lueders, associate administrator, Human Exploration and Operations Mission Directorate, NASA Headquarters
- Steve Stich, manager, Commercial Crew Program, Kennedy Space Center
- Joel Montalbano, manager, International Space Station, Johnson
- Holly Ridings, chief flight director, Johnson
- Hans Koenigsmann, senior advisor, Flight Reliability, SpaceX
- Hiroshi Sasaki, vice president and director general, JAXA’s Human Spaceflight Technology Directorate
NASA’s SpaceX Crew-1 mission launched Nov. 15, 2020, on a Falcon 9 rocket from the agency’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida for a six-month science mission aboard the orbiting laboratory. The astronauts named the spacecraft Resilience, in honor of their families, colleagues, and fellow citizens and highlighting the dedication displayed by the teams involved with the mission and demonstrating that there is no limit to what humans can achieve when they work together. Crew Dragon Resilience docked to the Harmony module’s forward port of the space station Nov. 16, nearly 27 hours after liftoff.
More details about the mission and NASA’s commercial crew program can be found by following the commercial crew blog, @commercial_crew and commercial crew on Facebook.
Learn more about station activities by following @space_station and @ISS_Research
on Twitter as well as the ISS Facebook and ISS Instagram accounts.