You are watching the postlaunch news conference. We have kathy leaders, associate administrator for Operation Mission director at nasa headquarters. Steve fitch, manager commercial Group Program from houston. Joe montalbano, manager International Space program in the johnson and sarah walker, director drag at mission launch. A beautiful fighting theot be head into the count. Ande all sitting there reallyere looking think we hadont thathe floor. I think itnjoyable. To see just how excited ande and josh and anna were as theyteran orbit stuff once again space andg being in always great to see that theh go through and see safely. Operating human, these are real is a teamnd there recover fromto last week and get the open. Space center back worktimony to all the i would like to the folks that worked so nasand the space x and got ust carefully now i will today. Eve stich. Here todayure to be said, i guess im super today. Ith the launch beenather couldnt have space center. Nedy anydnt have to look at monitor, just window and see beautiful wayskies and it was that as well. Ground track we talked about the aw and that was within limits so six hours prior to the launch, we decided to go to countdown and what a great decision that was. The team did a phenomenal job working with the issues on the launchpad in space x recovered the drone ship and we saw the booster lent perfectly on that. We replaced an actuator and engine three and that worked out great and we got the fire suppression, small leak fixed and we were ready to go fly. The vehicle is doing great in orbit. Dragon is doing well in the nosecone was open and thrusters are doing great and all the systems are working fine. You could see nicole and josh and anna and koichi happy to be in space. Its great to see them in orbit and we will focus the next 29 hours from launch to get them docked and that talking time is 450 7 p. M. Tomorrow afternoon eastern. We will really turn our attention to that phase of the flight and we are excited about the launch and we are excited dragon is doing well and we will focus on docking and get them safely back to the space station stop. Thank you guys for being here today and for those dialing in. An outstanding launch as you heard. Its awesome to have new space flyers on the way to the International Space station. These guys will dock just before 5 00 p. M. Eastern time tomorrow. The hatch opening will be about 90 its later 90 minutes later. They will stay docked about 150 days and then we will have them do recent Human Research experience, Technology Development that will help us go past lower orbit and do further exploration as well as do some of our commercialization activities. As far as the handover between crew four and crew five, it will be five days once the vehicle gets docked, we will work the details with the commercial crew program and spacex. We have a good handful of days with the team. With that, let me congratulate and thank their International Partners, or commercial crew program and the spacex team, fantastic day to be in human spaceflight. Thank you. I have similar things to say. Maybe i will keep it short. An incredible day to launch dragon and crew five to the space station. We are excited to see nicole, josh ,koic start their mission and someone remindedhi and anna marks the 30 humans that space access into space. My life flashed before me on hyperdrive. It feels like yesterday that bob and doug were driving up to the path in 2020 and here we are, 30 humans in space. Falcon 9 launched dragon into an orbit that was an hour and a half ago and then the first stage booster returned to the drone ship which is stationed in the atlantic ocean. It happened to be a first flight booster so it will return to shore for many more flights in the future. Dragon has completed its initial and soon it will perform a series of urns for test before ducking tomorrow. Its a 29 hour flight stop once its docked, my team focus will be on bringing the crew home safely to their friends and family in about a weeks time. We will continue to watch the weather in the vehicle thats onboard supporting the crew for mission is healthy and we will watch with those conditions to safely bring the crew home and safe for our recovery teams. Thanks for enabling this launched today and thank you especially to nasa and the cosmos for collaborating how incredible that i have three nation space agencies here at the table representing this mission, huge partnership and collaboration so thank you for your partnership. Thank you for the introduction. This is a great time to see the launch and every time its very beautiful. On behalf of jetsa i want to express my thanks to everyone devoted to the launch. The Mission Still going on but id like to congratulate all of you on the launch. I am sure that the crew five mission has a Strong International partnership. Its a tough time we are facing now. I believe the partnership has been and will continue to be a key to bring a variety of benefits available to the iss. This is the fifth flight for a japanese astronaut. He has a rich experience in space and i hope he transfers his experience to his colleagues and create a fruitful trip which is special to our life on earth and exploration. Im confident that japan will continue to take a significant role by making the best use of our expertise and open a new era with International Partnerships. Congratulations on the launch. I give it over to sergei. Thank you very much. Its difficult to add something to what was already said. I just want to say this cooperation to do this flight, a of weeks ago, and american member who went on the russian soviet space station and now the russian cosmonaut is a member of this crew there going to be on the station soon and joined together. Its important that we start a new phase. We continue what was started many years ago in 1975 working together and that we continue our cooperation. I also want to say that we celebrate a successful launch but for the crew, its the beginning of the mission. They need to talk tomorrow and then they have many days of very interesting phase of their flight with new experiments and i hope the flight will be successful. I would like to wish for the crew a successful flight and a good mission. Thank you, everyone for the opening remarks and now we will get into the questions. We have reporters here as well as on the phone. Please ask one question so we can get to as many people as possible. I saw the first handover here. Right over here, actually. Reporter good afternoon, im tom costello with nbc news and gratulations another great launch. To sergei from the Russian Space agency, i know you addresses of you days ago but in this setting now that we have a television camera, how committed is russia to this International Cooperation to the space station and how long will you be a partner with the united states, japan and canada and the International Partners in this program . This is to questions. How long depends on many things and technical things would probably be primary. I think we started to cooperate more than 40 years ago and we will continue our cooperation as long as i can imagine. Right here. Reporter im jim siegel. Congratulations to all of you and your teams for a great launch here today. I believe i have a question for sarah. I believe that crew four had an investigation concerning artificial retinas. Im interested in whether that investigation will come back with crew for or it will stay on the space station for additional work . Let me take a run at that stuff they did the retina experiment and the result of that will help restore sight. The goal is that you take that information you use and make a step closer to those who have lost sight. I believe we return some of that work on the cargo spacecraft. I thought spacex 25 return some of that but i will verify that. I sought marshas hand here on the first row reporter Associated Press for sergei. How does it feel being back here launching cosmonauts again from Kennedy Space center, you were the first, after all. For your staff in moscow, has the war been a distraction for them in the longer it goes, do you worry about them being distracted or having their work impacted by whats going on . The crew which is flying now in space which just launched, tomorrow, they have a tight schedule and a lot of assignments and they will do what they are supposed to do. I hope destruction from what is going on on the ground as a minimum because we try to focus on strategic tasks and engineering tasks and the crew will do what they are supposed to do. As for me, i am pleased to be here again. I remember being here along time ago in the first phase of our cooperation we started to do Shuttle Missions and construction of the International Space station. For me, am glad to see old friends and old colleagues. As i said, i hope we cooperate together the way it was started in 1975. Reporter i didnt mean the crew being distracted, i meant flight controllers. Your team in moscow, are they being distracted by the ongoing war in ukraine . They also do what they are supposed to do we have a team not only in moscow but also in houston. We have a group of Russian Mission control and a group of americans in Mission Control in moscow in Mission Control in houston. This group is very focused to do what they are supposed to do. Reporter thank you. I saw a hand in the second row on this side . Thank you. Reporter i am from the russian tass my question is for steve, i was curious about your take about the meaning of todays launch, what does it mean for the future of russia and u. S. Cooperation and do you have any plans to extend the agreement after 2024 . I will take the first part and let joel talk about the agreement that i was excited today to have another International Partner flight on our commercial crew vehicle, it was great to see ann flya and see surrogate again. I worked with him a long time ago. We are continuing to fly International Partner astronauts and we take these positions very seriously. Each one is different and i was reflecting back and this is our second crew launch and a little over 2. 5 years and each is different but when we go about the preparation, is the same for every flight. An example of the preparation was today. We were closing the hatch and we take some pictures of the hatch and the seals around the hatch in the team saw one human hair on that seal and spotted it quickly and reopen the hatch to get that hair off and make sure it was good. Thats what our teams are doing on the nasa side at kennedy in partnership with spacex. Its a great team effort. We are excited to flight more and more cosmonauts and japanese astronauts an error u. S. Astronauts in our program. From a cooperation standpoint, we have been cooperating with the Russian Space agency since the apollo soyuz. The general was at the launch with us. General stafford leads the u. S. Review commission and reviews the space Station Program on a regular basis and hes been part of this process. It was good to see that but as far as future work, everyone is well aware we signed an agreement for one flight this year and one flight next year and one flight in 2024. Death for all spacex missions. Once boeing gets up and running, or plans to continue this cooperation on the boeing missions and we will partner across the board extend past 2024. We will pause in the room real quick and take a caller on the phone. We have Chris Davenport with the washington post. Reporter congratulations on another beautiful launch. In your recent comments including today, it seemed you are making a real effort to smooth over relations with nasa and demonstrate you are committed to the partnership. I cant help but notice how this stands in stark contrast to the way the partnership was spoken of. I wonder if its part of a concerted effort to ease the tensions that arose and turned down the temperature a bit. Thank you very much. We have another caller on the phone from reuters. Reporter thank you. I have question, beyond this Crew Exchange agreement russia has with nasa, do you have any other agreements for other countries to flight nonrussian asked not on soyuz . Are you in talks with those countries . To me . Ok. We have this agreement but nothing new is happening. We recently flew a u astronautae we have a special procedure every time we fly a nonpartner crew member on board soyuz or american vehicle, we need to have a full agreement from our International Partners. Uae cosmonaut and in the future, we plan to get new countries and new programs and new agencies involved in spaceflight. We just follow the procedure that was set a while ago and agree with each other for the next step. Back here in the room, you raised your hand in the first row . Reporter thank you. Can kramer for space up close and congratulations on a beautiful launch especially after the hurricane. Sergei, its an honor to have you here. You are a hero to all of the people who love space, thanks for being here. I want to ask you about your perspective on the iss will stop you are the first one on the First Mission and it has grown tremendously. Tell us about your expectation for the iss. Has it met them, exceeded them, what do you hope the iss will lead to in the future . Thats a complicated question. Probably the big story behind what was planned initially, i can just remind you that when we started this program, it was built in order to fly for 50 years. We exceeded the 50 years time mark a long time ago. It was extended a couple of times. We have agreed to do flights up to 2024 and are already in talks with their International Partners and talking with our specialists in russia and looking through technical capabilities to fly. We understand it makes sense to keep flying. There is an excellent infrastructure we built in space to be used for humanity, even more than what we usually planned. From the very beginning, we understood the station is very valuable to do science in space in a lowearth orbit but we understand that space is good for future flights and for flying beyond lowearth orbit and we can test a lot of equipment and a lot of procedures and methods of flying and working on the International Space station. We are going to keep it that way in the future and we will see how long the station will be able to fly. The main innovations will be technical. A question on this side of the room back here . Reporter aaron cooper with cnn. I understand soyuz has been able to do fast track docking attempts. Why hasnt that been tried with the Dragon Missions . Is there a thought of doing expedited for faster docking . The missions are not very long, on order of a day. It depends on the orbital mechanics of what day we launch and when and where the space station is. Joel can speak to this but a day or less is a nice, Short Mission to get to the space station. When you constrain or launch two hours, you have to constrain launch date. The one day helps us maximize the opportunities. We could have launched anytime this week. We wouldve done 10 more hours tomorrow out of 38. 5 hours to dock. We have chosen to optimize any time launch and have as many opportunities. Some of those are as short as 16 hours to dock and some are a little longer like the one today step we have chosen to optimize any days launch to handle the weather situation at the Kennedy Space center and our launch environment has lots of debt lots of watches and abort weather. We chosen to do that since as opposed to optimizing the dragon to launch in a couple of situations if we choose to do so. One last hand in the room, yes . Reporter john mcgill with wyandotte. Cable we have been getting used to previously flown boosters. How does a new booster differ in your preparation . There is not a difference, the checks that we do in preparing for the launch, certifying the booster, we have a Production Facility in hawthorne, california and a number of lanes for refurbishment capability at the cape so there are different activities we do performing maintenance or building a new one. This is happenstance due to the timing of this launch, this was the first rooster to come off the line and we try to make sure we had boosters ready to support our customers needs. We like getting the new boosters. Every time spacex put the new used her in the fleet, they continue to make safety improvements to boosters. They have better inspections in some areas than we have had in the past in terms of looking at the hardware. There isn a robustess in the aft part of the vehicle to keep the plumes come from coming inside. Each booster we get, i think we get we get another one on crew six and everyone of those, we see improvements so we like the reflown boosters but getting a new booster gets an upgrade with safety improvements which we appreciate from a nasa perspective. The nasa certification process tells us we are ok across the board. Safety and liability are the first priority. We have one of the person on the phone, reuters. Reporter thank you, i have one followup for sergei. How important is it for russia to remain as an International Space station partner . Would russia be able to sustain a Human Flight Program if it pulled out of the program in 2024 . We are thinking about building a new space station and we started the preliminary design but there is no final decision yet step we will keep flying the International Space station as long as our new infrastructure is built. We dont know yet how it will be built and what kind of modules we will have but im sure that we will sustain the International Partnership with the iss and future infrastructure will have an International Partnership. Thank you so much and thats all the questions so i now invite kathy for final remarks. I think sergei mentioned and he got the brunt of the questions today so thank you very much. We are just in one phase now so a great launch and we are very the team is focused on the good getting the crew to the iss. We are grateful that our partners are trusting us, and we are grateful that spacex is a great partner. They continue to fly without assistance. We are looking forward to nicole and josh and anna and coichi reaching the station, and i know jill has a list of things to do. So keep watching and following along because it will be calm and boring and will get there, but also, it is the teams, we know, that are a tremendous endeavor, and it takes people all over the country and the world to get to this point. So, i want to thank the teams that have gotten us to this point. Thank you for being here and thank you for your interests. You heard. He watching and following along. Coverage will continue on nasa tv for the docking of the space station which is expected tomorrow, thursday, october 6 at 4 57 p. M. Eastern time. We will also stay on to cover the welcome ceremony which is 90 miss ever that. Until then, follow us for any updates on social media and we will say goodbye with a beautiful replay of todays laun on thursday Nasas Spacex Crew five arrives at the International Space station. Watch live coverage at 4 00 a. M. Eastern on cspan, cspan now are free mobile video app or online at the span. Org. Cspan. Org. Cspan is your unfiltered view of government. 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