Liftoff of the Crew-12 mission is scheduled for 5:51 a.m. EST (1051 GMT), weather permitting. It will launch from SpaceX's pad at Space Launch Complex 41 at the Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida, as the company no longer plans to use NASA's own Pad 39B for Dragon crew launches.

Last week, Musk announced a record-setting, all-stock transaction in which SpaceX, the aerospace and defense juggernaut, acquired xAI, which owns and operates social network X and is the developer of Grok, the embattled AI chatbot and image generator.