TEMPO.CO, Jakarta – After a series of delays, SpaceX Crew-3 eventually launched four astronauts to the International Space Station, or ISS. The launch will take place on Wednesday night, November 10, at 21:03 UTC or Thursday morning, November 11, 2021 at 04:03 WIB, at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida, United States.
Four astronaut Those—Thomas Marshburn, Raja Chari, and Kayla Barron of NASA, and Matthias Maurer of the European Space Agency—will dock on the ISS at around 7:10 p.m. ET on November 11 or 7:10 a.m. EDT on November 12. They will embark on a six-month stay in orbit in the space research laboratory.
“Everything looks like we’re in a good place to fly,” SpaceX vice president William Gerstenmaier said at a pre-launch briefing Wednesday night.
This launch marks the third operational crew mission between SpaceX and NASA to date, and the first with the newest fleet of SpaceX Crew Dragon spacecraft, dubbed the Endurance. The Crew-3 mission brings the number of astronauts launched by Elon Musk’s company to 18 people.
NASA and SpaceX have delayed the launch of Crew-3 several times since its previous target, October 31, due to bad weather in the Atlantic Ocean as well as a minor medical problem with one of the four crew members. The ocean must be calm in the direction of the rocket launch, otherwise the flight cancellation halfway causes the capsule to fall after liftoff.
NASA declined to go into further detail on the medical issue, citing to protect the astronauts’ privacy, but said it was not an emergency and unrelated to Covid-19.
During the launch, Chari, the commander of the spacecraft, was selected as an astronaut by NASA in 2017, and will be on his first space flight. The US Air Force colonel, with more than 2,500 flight hours, was also selected by NASA as one of the astronauts eligible for future Artemis missions later this decade.
Marshburn, the pilot of Crew-3, was selected as an astronaut by NASA in 2004. This was Marshburn’s third space flight. He also flew on the Russian Soyuz space shuttle and spacecraft. Previously Marshburn was a NASA aviation surgeon.
Meanwhile, Barron flew as mission specialist Crew-3, which was selected by NASA in 2017. This launch was his first spaceflight. He graduated from the US Naval Academy in 2010, and holds a master’s degree in nuclear engineering from the University of Cambridge.
Maurer, the latest international astronaut to fly with SpaceX, joined the European astronaut corps in 2015. This will also be his first space flight.
They will conduct research to help inform future space exploration and benefit life on Earth. Scientific highlights of the mission include experiments to grow plants in space without soil or other growth media, and constructing optical fibers in microgravity, which previous research suggests would be superior in quality to those made on Earth.
PHYS | SPACE
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SpaceX Crew-3 Launch Brings Crew to ISS Again Postponed
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