The SpaceX Falcon rocket is located at Launch Complex 39A on Tuesday, April 26, 2022, at the Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida. Four astronauts are scheduled to fly on a SpaceX mission to the International Space Station on Wednesday morning. Credit: AP Photo / Chris O’Meara
SpaceX launched four astronauts to NASA’s International Space Station on Wednesday, less than two days after completing a flight chartered by millionaires.
This is NASA’s first crew of men and women alike, including the first black woman to make a long-term space flight, Jessica Watkins.
“I think this is one of the most diverse crews we’ve had in a very, very long time,” said NASA space operations chief Kathy Lueders on the eve of the launch.
The astronauts were scheduled to arrive at the space station on Wednesday night, 16 hours after they took off before dawn from the Kennedy Space Center. They will spend five months in the orbital laboratory.
SpaceX has already released five NASA crews and two private voyages in just under two years. Elon Musk’s company has a particularly busy week: it has just finished taking three businessmen to and from the space station as NASA’s first private guests.
A week after the arrival of the new crew, the three Americans and a German who replace them will return to Earth in their own SpaceX capsule. Three Russians also live on the space station.
SpaceX and NASA officials said they were taking it step by step to ensure safety. They said the private mission, which ended on Monday, did not encounter any serious problems, although strong winds delayed the descent by a week.
The SpaceX Falcon rocket is located at Launch Complex 39A on Tuesday, April 26, 2022, at the Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida. Four astronauts are scheduled to fly on a SpaceX mission to the International Space Station on Wednesday morning. Credit: AP Photo / Chris O’Meara
SpaceX capsules are fully automated – which opens space gates to a wider clientele – and are designed to accommodate a wider range of body sizes. At the same time, NASA and the European Space Agency are pushing for more female astronauts.
While two black women visited the space station during the shuttle era, none of them moved for long. Watkins, a geologist on NASA’s shortlist for a moon landing mission in the coming years, sees his mission as “an important milestone, in my opinion, for both the agency and the country.”
She acknowledged the supportive family and mentors – including May Jamison, the first black woman in space in 1992 – for “finally being able to live my dream”.
Like Watkins, NASA astronaut and test pilot Bob Hines is making his first space flight. This is the second visit for the only female astronaut of the European Space Agency Samantha Cristoforetti, a former pilot of a fighter of the Italian Air Force, and Kel Lindgren from NASA, a doctor.
The just-completed private flight was NASA’s first immersion in space tourism after years of opposition. The space agency said the three people, who paid $ 55 million each to visit the space station, mingled while doing experiments and educational activities. They were accompanied by a former NASA astronaut hired by the Houston-based Axiom Space, which organizes the flight.
The SpaceX Falcon rocket is located at Launch Complex 39A on Tuesday, April 26, 2022, at the Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida. Four astronauts must fly on a SpaceX mission to the International Space Station. Credit: AP Photo / Chris O’Meara
“The International Space Station is not a place to rest. It is not an amusement park. It is an international laboratory and they absolutely understood and respected that goal,” said NASA Flight Director Zeb Scoville.
NASA also hired Boeing to transport astronauts after withdrawing the shuttles. The company will make another attempt next month to deliver an empty capsule to the crew to the space station, after software and other problems disrupted the test flight in 2019 and prevented a repeat last summer.
The crew of the first private flight to the ISS returns to Earth
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