The Stars My Destination: Crew-1, Crew-2, & O.F.T.-2

This morning, the Crew Dragon Resilience (C207), with the Crew-1 foursome aboard, relocated from one docking port on the International Space Station's (I.S.S.) Harmony module to another Harmony docking port, to prepare for the arrival of the Crew Dragon Endeavour (C206) with the four Crew-2 astronauts later this month. Last month, the Russian Soyuz capsule with the MS-17 trio (to the best of my knowledge, our Russian colleagues don't name their capsules) moved from one docking port to another to prepare for the arrival of a second Soyuz capsule with the MS-18 crew (two cosmonuats & one astronaut) at the end of this week.

For most of the past decade, between the retirement of the Space Shuttle fleet & the advent of the SpaceX Crew Dragon as a operational capsule, the International Space Station had an average crew size of three, the crew complement of a Soyuz capsule. There are currently crew aboard the I.S.S., five astronauts (four Americans, one Japanese) & two Russian cosmonauts. From the arrival of MS-18 (approximately Friday, 9 April) to the departure of MS-17 (approximately Saturday, 17 April), there will be ten astronauts & cosmonauts aboard the I.S.S.; from the arrival of Crew-2 (approximately Thursday, 22 April) to the departure of Crew-1 (approximately Wednesday, 28 April) there will be eleven astronauts & cosmonauts. I.S.S. crews of seven or more should be the new norm. More astronauts & cosmonauts means more work being accomplished, more science being done. "Science!" These are exciting times.

The casualty in this busy month of crew rotations is the Orbital Flight Test-2 (O.F.T.-2) of the Boeing Starliner capsule. O.F.T.-2 was scheduled for approximately Friday, 2 April, but was delayed by all the Soyuz & Crew Dragon relocations, arrivals, & departures. It is not yet clear when, after April's crew rotations are completed, O.F.T.-2 will launch. Whenever O.F.T.-2 happens, if it as successful as we all hope, will be followed by the Boeing Crew Flight Test (C.F.T., the Starliner equivalent of Summer 2020's SpaceX Demo-2, the first flight of the Crew Dragon Endeavour), no sooner than Fall 2021.

Also unknown is how the private Inspiration4 spaceflight (September 2021) might effect SpaceX Crew-3 for N.A.S.A. to the I.S.S. (October 2021), as right now both flights are scheduled to use the Crew Dragon Resilience: Is the Resilience resilient enough to be refurbished that quickly? According to the Wikipedia, there are three additional Crew Dragon capsules under construction, but none is close to crew-rated flight readiness.

Bonus! Song o' the Day: Crew-1 & the Resilience
Billy Joel, "Movin' Out (Anthony's Song)" from Greatest Hits, Vol. 1 (Space Cadet Mike Papa Whiskey)