Washington | AFP
Four astronauts took off early this Saturday (26), from the Kennedy Space Center, in Florida, towards the International Space Station (ISS, its acronym in English). This is the seventh regular crew rotation mission operated by Elon Musk’s SpaceX for NASA.
The Falcon 9 rocket carries the Dragon capsule, which should dock with the ISS after a journey of approximately one day. The crew consists of four people, who will spend six months on the station to conduct scientific experiments.
The Crew-7 mission is commanded by the American Jasmin Moghbeli, 40, who makes her first trip to space.
“What I look forward to most is seeing our planet from above,” the MIT-trained, Iranian-born astronaut said at a press conference last month. “Everyone I’ve spoken to who’s ever flown said it was a life-changing view.”
Andreas Mogensen and Satoshi Furukawa, respectively from the European (ESA) and Japanese (Jaxa) agencies, have been to the ISS before, even if the first time lasted only ten days.
As for the fourth member of the mission, the Russian Konstantin Borisov, the idea of going into space is also unprecedented.
Despite heightened diplomatic tensions between Washington and Moscow since the start of the war in Ukraine, collaboration between the US and Russian agencies continues on the ISS, one of the few areas of ongoing cooperation between the two countries.
The bilateral rocket passenger exchange program was also maintained: two other Russians have already traveled with SpaceX on the Crew-5 and Crew-6 missions.
Recently, Americans have also flown in Soyuz spacecraft, and the next Russian mission with an American is scheduled for September.
The crew of the Crew-7 mission will join the seven passengers already aboard the ISS, which has been permanently inhabited for more than 20 years.
After a few days of taking turns with the Crew-6 crew (two Americans, one Russian and one Emirati), the members of this last mission will return to Earth aboard another SpaceX capsule.
This is the seventh regular mission to the ISS carried out by SpaceX at the request of NASA, not counting a test mission in which two astronauts also participated.
NASA also signed a contract with Boeing for the development of a second means of American transport to the ISS.
That program has suffered numerous delays and its first manned test flight is scheduled for after March 2024.
2023-08-26 07:57:00
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