Cape Canaveral, Florida – Elon Musk’s rocket firm SpaceX was set to launch early Monday the International Space Station’s subsequent long-duration group into orbit, with an astronaut from the United Arab Emirates and a Russian cosmonaut becoming a member of two NASA crewmates for the flight.
The SpaceX launch car, consisting of a Falcon 9 rocket topped with an autonomously operated Crew Dragon capsule referred to as Endeavour, was set for liftoff at 1:45 a.m. EST (0645 GMT) from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida.
The four-member crew ought to attain the International Space Station (ISS) about 25 hours later, Tuesday morning, to start a six-month mission in microgravity aboard the orbiting laboratory some 250 miles (420 km) above Earth.
Designated Crew 6, the mission marks the sixth long-term ISS group that NASA has flown aboard SpaceX because the personal rocket enterprise based by Musk – billionaire CEO of electrical automotive maker Tesla and social media platform Twitter – started sending American astronauts to orbit in May 2020.
NASA mentioned the mission’s launch readiness assessment was accomplished Saturday, and that the flight was given a ‘go’ to proceed to liftoff as deliberate.
‘All methods and climate are trying good for launch,’ Musk wrote on Twitter Sunday.
The newest ISS crew is led by mission commander Stephen Bowen, 59, a onetime U.S. Navy submarine officer who has logged greater than 40 days in orbit as a veteran of three area shuttle flights and 7 spacewalks.
Fellow NASA astronaut Warren ‘Woody’ Hoburg, 37, an engineer and industrial aviator designated because the Crew 6 pilot, will likely be making his first spaceflight.
The Crew 6 mission is also notable for its inclusion of UAE astronaut Sultan Alneyadi, 41, solely the second individual from his nation to fly to area and the primary to launch from U.S. soil as a part of a long-duration area station group. UAE’s first-ever astronaut launched to orbit in 2019 aboard a Russian spacecraft.
Rounding out the four-man Crew 6 is Russian cosmonaut Andrey Fedyaev, 41, who like Alneyadi is an engineer and spaceflight rookie designated as a mission specialist for the group.
Fedyaev is the most recent cosmonaut to fly aboard an American spacecraft below a ride-sharing deal signed in July by NASA and the Russian area company Roscosmos, regardless of heightened tensions between Washington and Moscow over Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
The Crew 6 group will likely be welcomed aboard the area station by seven present ISS occupants – three U.S. NASA crew members, together with commander Nicole Aunapu Mann, the primary Native American lady to fly to area, together with three Russians and a Japanese astronaut.
The ISS, concerning the size of a soccer subject and the most important synthetic object in area, has been constantly operated by a U.S.-Russian-led consortium that features Canada, Japan and 11 European nations.
The outpost was conceived partially as a enterprise to enhance relations between Washington and Moscow following the Soviet Union’s collapse and the tip of Cold War rivalries that gave rise to the unique U.S.-Soviet area race within the Fifties and Sixties.
NASA-Roscosmos cooperation has been examined as by no means earlier than since Russia invaded Ukraine a yr in the past, main the United States to impose sweeping sanctions in opposition to Moscow whereas steadily growing navy help to the Ukrainian authorities.
The Crew 6 mission additionally follows two latest mishaps during which Russian spacecraft docked to the orbiting laboratory sprang coolant leaks apparently triggered micrometeoroids, tiny grains of area rock, streaking by means of area and placing the craft at excessive velocity.
One of the affected Russian automobiles was a Soyuz crew capsule that had carried two cosmonauts and an astronaut to the area station in September for a six-month mission now set to finish in March. An empty alternative Soyuz to deliver them dwelling blasted off Friday and arrived on the area station Saturday.