It's Launch Day! Here's what you need to know about today's SpaceX Crew-5 launch

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It's Launch Day!

SpaceX is poised to launch the Crew-5 mission to the International Space Station today from Kennedy Space Center's Pad 39A. Here's what you need to know.

• Launch time: Noon (EDT) Wednesday for the SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket

• Weather: As of Tuesday, weather was expected to be at or near 90% "go" conditions.

• Payload: Crew Dragon capsule with three astronauts and one cosmonaut.

• Who's onboard: NASA's Josh Cassada, Nicole Mann, Japan's Koichi Wakata, and Russia's Anna Kikina. The crew arrived at Kennedy Space Center on Saturday. You can learn more about each of them here.

• Trajectory: The Crew-5 mission will fly a northeast trajectory.

• Landing: SpaceX will attempt a first stage booster landing on a drone ship in the Atlantic Ocean approximately 8 minutes after launch.

• Back up date: Friday, Oct. 7

• Crew-5 is SpaceX's sixth crewed mission for NASA's Commercial Crew Program and the eighth crewed mission overall for SpaceX.

• The science mission is a first-time trip to space for Mann, Cassada, and Kikina and the fifth trip for Wakata.

• It is the first time a Russian cosmonaut will fly aboard a SpaceX mission as part of a crew-swap agreement between NASA and Roscosmos, the Russian space agency.

• Full coverage kicks off at 10 a.m. Wednesday at floridatoday.com/space and will feature live chat, livestream video and more. Ask the space team reporter Emre Kelly questions and strike up a conversation.

Rob Landers is a veteran multimedia journalist for the USA Today Network of Florida. Contact Landers at 321-242-3627 or rlanders@gannett.com. Twitter: @ByRobLanders

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This article originally appeared on Florida Today: SpaceX Crew 5 launch day space exploration ISS liftoff