away with the secondstage engine ignitingapril 8 2022 1117 am etapril 8 2022 1117 am et kenneth changreporting on spaceflightcountdown events pass quickly in the last couple of minutes the dragon is on its own power now and other systems are starting up april 8 2022 1114 am etapril 8 2022 1114 am et kenneth changreporting on spaceflightpropellant tanks are full and the strongback the vertical structure that connects to the falcon 9 until the final minutes of the countdown has tilted away from the rocket a few minutes until liftoffapril 8 2022 1104 am etapril 8 2022 1104 am et kenneth changreporting on spaceflightloading of liquid oxygen has begun in addition to the rp1 rocket fuel which is essentially kerosene 15 minutes until launchapril 8 2022 1102 am etapril 8 2022 1102 am ethow dangerous is the flightimagecreditjoe rimkus jrreutersthe crew is flying on the same spacecraft that nasa uses to take astronauts to orbit that means the space agency has required it to meet a number of safety standards in five journeys so far no significant safety problems have been reported with the spacecraftbut every journey to space presents dangers from the moment the crew members are sealed into a spacecraft until the moment they safely exit astronauts have died on the launchpad like the apollo 1 disaster as they headed to orbit the space shuttle challenger and as they reentered the atmosphere the space shuttle columbia the apollo 13 missions mishap showed the difficulty in bringing back a crew when the crippled spacecraft is far from earthfive successful trips of a spacecraft also does not mean all potential problems have been discovered and fixed there were 24 successful space shuttle missions before the loss of challenger in 1986even the astronauts aboard crew dragon have encountered risks during a flight to the space station in april mission controllers warned the crew that a piece of space debris was about to whiz past the astronauts put on their spacesuits got back in their seats and lowered their protective visors the flight continued to the space station without incident and later analysis showed that it was a false alarm that no debris actually passed near the spacecraftin the days leading up to his launch in september last year during the inspiration4 mission jared isaacman the flights commander compared it with his hobby of flying fighter jetsi also like to look at risk on a relative basis mr issacman said the last couple days weve been tearing up the skies in fighter jets which i put it relatively higher risk than this mission so that were nice and comfortable as we get strapped into falconapril 8 2022 1052 am etapril 8 2022 1052 am et kenneth changreporting on spaceflightpropellants are flowing into the falcon 9 rocketapril 8 2022 1041 am etapril 8 2022 1041 am et kenneth changreporting on spaceflightthe launch escape system is armed that is to take the crew to safety if there is a malfunctionapril 8 2022 1035