Four astronauts from three different countries are on the SpaceX Crew Dragon Spacecraft. Early Saturday morning, it got docked with the International Space Station as it began the six-month stay in space with the crew.
This mission, Crew-2, is the third-ever flight by the company of Elon Musk.
Furthermore, it’s the first to use a previously flown and privately kept rocket booster and spacecraft.
On Friday morning, the astronauts took off from the Kennedy Space Center.
Then, for the next 24 hours, it flew through orbit at more than 17,000 miles per hour while the Crew Dragon Spacecraft hovered toward the ISS, which orbits above the earth at around 250 miles.
On Saturday morning, the capsule slowly got in line and moved into the dock of the space station port.
The crew includes Akihiko Hoshide with Japan’s JAXA space agency, NASA astronauts Shane Kimbrough and Megan MacArthur, and Thomas Pesquet of the European Space Agency.
Space Agency
The space agency’s main goal for the astronaut’s mission is to conduct research using “tissue chips.” These are small models of human organs with different cell types that act just like they do in the body. NASA aims to use these chips to develop new drugs and vaccines.
Scientists on the ISS have gathered knowledge about biological and other scientific phenomena for many years. They’ve used the unique microgravity environment to gain a deeper understanding of how things work at a fundamental level.
There are already seven astronauts on the station, of which four came on different SpaceX Crew Dragon in November.
With Kimbrough, McArthur, Pesquet, and Hoshide joining the other astronauts, the total comes to 11, making it the largest crew ever hosted by ISS.
However, that number will return to seven on April 28, when four of the eleven return home.
Space Shuttle Program
NASA dedicated over 10 years to finding ways to increase staffing on the 21-year-old space station. This became crucial after the retirement of the Space Shuttle program in 2011, which left Russia’s Soyuz spacecraft as the sole means for astronauts to travel to and from the ISS.
Russia is getting paid around $90 million per seat for trips from the United States.
For many years, SpaceX has been working on its Crew Dragon spacecraft with NASA’s Commercial Crew program. They had a fixed-price contract of $2.6 billion.
This is the first time in NASA’s history that they’ve trusted a private company to create and test a spacecraft for carrying crews.
Although the boosters and spacecraft have been flown many times on satellite and cargo launches over the past few years, it marks the first time the company reused the hardware for a mission with crews.
Who are the 4 Astronauts on SpaceX?
- NASA’s Jasmin Moghbeli is the mission commander.
- Danish astronaut Andreas Mogensen represents the European Space Agency.
- Satoshi Furukawa is from the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency or JAXA.
- Russian cosmonaut Konstantin Borisov is part of Roscosmos.
Did SpaceX dock with the International Space Station?
On Sunday, astronauts expertly guided a SpaceX Crew Dragon capsule to dock with the International Space Station, concluding an exciting one-day trip to rendezvous with the space station. They kickstarted their adventure with a launch from Florida.
Has crew-7 Docked?
On Sunday, the International Space Station welcomed the latest SpaceX crew-7 mission with open arms. Four astronauts from four different countries journeyed aboard the Dragon Endurance spacecraft, marking a successful docking.
Is Crew-6 in Space?
Crew-6 splashed down off the coast of Jacksonville, Florida, aboard SpaceX’s Dragon spacecraft at 12:17 a.m. on September 4. Shortly after, they flew back to Houston. These four crewmates completed an incredible journey, covering approximately 78,875,292 statute miles over 2,976 orbits around the Earth, spending roughly 186 days in orbit.
