SpaceX Dragon’s High-Stakes Docking Dance on the International Space Station

SpaceX Dragon Endeavour Docked to Harmony Module Wide
The SpaceX Dragon Endeavour spacecraft is pictured docked to the International Space Station’s space-facing port on the Harmony module. Endeavour launched four SpaceX Crew-8 members to the orbital outpost including NASA astronauts Matthew Dominick, Mike Barratt, and Jeanette Epps, and Roscosmos cosmonaut Alexander Grebenkin. Credit: NASA

To prepare for NASA’s 31st SpaceX commercial resupply mission, four crew members aboard the International Space Station (ISS) will relocate the SpaceX Crew-9 Dragon spacecraft to a new docking port on Sunday, November 3.

Live coverage will begin at 6:15 a.m. EST on NASA+ and continue through docking completion. NASA content can also be accessed through various platforms, including social media.

At 6:35 a.m., NASA astronauts Nick Hague, Suni Williams, and Butch Wilmore, along with Roscosmos cosmonaut Aleksandr Gorbunov, will undock the spacecraft from the forward-facing port of the ISS Harmony module. By 7:18 a.m., they plan to redock it at the module’s space-facing port.

SpaceX Dragon Freedom Approaches International Space Station 2024
The SpaceX Dragon Freedom spacecraft carrying NASA astronaut Nick Hague and Roscosmos cosmonaut Aleksandr Gorbunov approaches the International Space Station as it orbited 259 miles above Oregon. Credit: NASA

This maneuver, coordinated by flight controllers at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston and SpaceX Mission Control in Hawthorne, California, will make room at Harmony’s forward-facing port for a Dragon cargo mission scheduled for launch no earlier than Monday, November 4.

This will be the fifth port relocation of a Dragon spacecraft with crew aboard following previous moves during the Crew-1, Crew-2, Crew-6, and Crew-8 missions.

NASA’s SpaceX Crew-9 mission launched on September 28 from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida and docked to the space station on September 29. Crew-9, targeted to return in February 2025, is the company’s ninth rotational crew mission as a part of the agency’s Commercial Crew Program.