SpaceX to launch space station into orbit for NASA
2023.03.02 02:52
SpaceX to launch space station into orbit for NASA
By Kristina Sobol
Budrigannews.com – A Russian cosmonaut and an astronaut from the United Arab Emirates joined two NASA crewmembers for the early morning launch of a four-man crew to orbit on their way to the International Space Station.
At 12:34 a.m. EST (05:34 GMT), the SpaceX launch vehicle, which consists of a Falcon 9 rocket and an autonomous Crew Dragon capsule called Endeavour, launched from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida.
The 25-story spacecraft was shown ascending from the launch tower in a live NASA webcast as its nine Merlin engines roared to life, producing billowing clouds of vapor and a reddish fireball that lit up the early morning sky.
Due to a blockage in the flow of engine-ignition fluid, an initial launch attempt was canceled in the final minutes of the countdown early on Monday, 72 hours after the flight. According to NASA, the issue was resolved by purging the system and replacing a clogged filter.
The Crew Dragon streaked through space at more than 20 times the speed of sound about nine minutes after Thursday’s launch. The rocket’s upper stage placed the craft into a preliminary orbit. In the meantime, the reusable lower-stage Falcon booster returned to Earth via a recovery vessel known as “Just Read the Instructions,” which was floating in the Atlantic.
A SpaceX mission control manager was heard jokingly radioing to the crew shortly after the capsule entered orbit: Please don’t forget to give us five stars if you enjoyed your ride.”
“We’d like to thank you for the great ride to orbit today,” NASA astronaut Stephen Bowen, the crew’s commander, said in a radio response.
It was anticipated that the journey to the International Space Station (ISS), a laboratory located approximately 250 miles (420 kilometers) above Earth, would take nearly 25 hours. The rendezvous was scheduled for Friday at approximately 1:15 a.m. EST (06:15 GMT).
About 200 experiments and technology demonstrations will be part of the crew’s six-month science mission. Topics include studying human cell growth in space and controlling combustible materials in microgravity.
The mission, which is called Crew 6, is the sixth long-term ISS team that NASA has flown aboard SpaceX since Musk, the billionaire CEO of Tesla (NASDAQ:), started the private rocket company. in May 2020, and the social media platform Twitter began sending American astronauts into space.
Bowen, 59, a former submarine officer in the United States Navy, was in charge of the most recent ISS crew. As a veteran of three Space Shuttle flights and seven spacewalks, he has spent more than 40 days in space. Warren “Woody” Hoburg, 37, an engineer and commercial pilot who was designated as the Crew 6 pilot and a fellow NASA astronaut, was making his first space flight.
The inclusion of 41-year-old UAE astronaut Sultan Alneyadi on the Crew 6 mission was also noteworthy. He was the first person from his country to launch from the United States as part of a long-duration space station team and the second person from his country to fly into space.
Andrey Fedyaev, a 42-year-old Russian cosmonaut who, like Alneyadi, is a spaceflight novice and engineer, served as a mission specialist for Crew 6.
In spite of the fact that tensions between Washington and Moscow have risen as a result of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Fedyaev is the second cosmonaut to board an American spacecraft as part of a new ride-sharing agreement that was signed in July between NASA and Roscosmos, the Russian space agency.
Seven current ISS occupants, three NASA crew members, including commander Nicole Aunapu Mann, the first Native American woman to fly into space, three Russians, and a Japanese astronaut, will welcome the Crew 6 team aboard the space station.
A U.S.-led, led by Russia, consortium that includes Canada, Japan, and 11 European nations has continuously operated the ISS, which is about the length of a football field.
