Endurance was the name given to the Crew Dragon capsule that can fly autonomously. It was launched by SpaceX Falcon 9 rockets from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center at Cape Canaveral in Florida.
The four-member SpaceX Crew Dragon team (including a Russian cosmonaut) safely docked on Thursday with the International Space Station (ISS). This will begin a five-month-long science mission.
After a 29-hour flight, the NASA latest expedition to the orbiting lab arrived at the rendezvous point just after 5 p.m. GMT (2100 GMT). The two vehicles circled Earth approximately 250 miles (420km) above Earth from the west coast of Africa. NASA broadcast the docking live.
Endurance was the name given to the Crew Dragon capsule that can fly autonomously. It was launched by SpaceX Falcon 9 rockets from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center at Cape Canaveral in Florida.
The crew includes two American NASA astronauts, flight commander Nicole Aunapu Mann, 46, and pilot Josh Cassada 49. There is also Japanese astronaut Koichi wakata, 59. Anna Kikina, 38. Anna Kikina was the first Russian onboard an American spacecraft for 20 years.
Despite the growing tensions between Washington, Moscow, and Moscow regarding the war in Ukraine, Kikina, the only female cosmonaut, was included with Roscosmos.
Kikina took part in the SpaceX Crew-5 flight, as per a new ride-sharing arrangement between Roscosmos & NASA signed in July. This allows the two countries continue to fly on each other’s spacecrafts to and from ISS.
Mann led the team. Mann is the first indigenous woman NASA sent to space. Mann also took the command seat on a SpaceX Crew Dragon. Mann, a U.S. Marine Corps colonel, combat fighter pilot, and commander of the team, was also one of the first 18 astronauts chosen for NASA’s upcoming Artemis missions aimed to return humans to the Moon later in the decade.
Mann declared, “We look ahead to getting to working,” moments after the linkup was completed over open radio channel with mission command and current ISS crew members.
Wakata thanked the flight control team and expressed his gratitude for the smooth ride to the station.
This is the fifth crew aboard a SpaceX capsule that NASA has sent to the ISS since SpaceX, a private rocket company founded by Tesla CEO Elon Tesla, began sending U.S. astronauts into space in May 2020.
The crew arrived at the station ready to perform a series of leak checks and pressurize their passageway between the capsule & the ISS.
Crew-5 will welcome seven ISS occupants – Crew-4 which is comprised of three Americans, an Italian astronaut and two Russians – and Crew-4 who was flown with them to orbit last month on a Soyuz flight.
Crew-4 astronauts will most likely return to Earth from the space station around next week.
During their 150-day mission, the new arrivals will carry out more than 200 experiments. Some of them focused on medical research. These included 3-D bio-printing of human tissue and studying bacteria in microgravity.
The ISS is a long-lasting space station that spans the length a football field. It has been continuously occupied ever since 2000. It is operated by a U.S.–Russian-led partnership that includes Canada and Japan as well as 11 European countries.
