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Author of the article:
Reuters
Joe Skipper and Steve Gorman
Publication date:
April 27, 2022 • 12 minutes ago • 3 minutes of reading • Join the conversation
Content of the article
CAPE CANAVER – Four astronauts, three from NASA and one from the European Space Agency, arrived at the International Space Station (ISS) on Wednesday and hooked up their SpaceX capsule just two days after the last crew to leave orbit returned to Earth.
The Crew Dragon capsule meeting with the station less than 16 hours after the launch from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida, marked one of Elon Musk’s fastest SpaceX flights to the ISS from takeoff to landing, NASA commentators said in Internet.
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The fully automated docking took place at about 7:37 p.m. EDT (2337 GMT), while the Crew Dragon capsule, called Freedom, and the space station flew about 260 miles (420 km) over the central Pacific, according to NASA.
Freedom’s crew consisted of three American astronauts from NASA – Flight Commander Kel Lindgren, 49; mission pilot Bob Hines, 47; and mission specialist Jessica Watkins, 33, and Italian astronaut Samantha Cristoforetti, 45, of the European Space Agency (ESA).
After docking early, crew members began a two-hour process of standard leak checks and sealing of the passage between the capsule and the ISS in preparation for opening the station hatch.
The newcomers were to be greeted aboard by seven existing ISS occupants, a four-member team to replace them – three Americans and a German teammate from ESA’s crew, due to complete its mission in early May – and three Russian astronauts.
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The last four astronauts, identified as Crew 4, are the fourth full-fledged ISS crew to be launched by NASA aboard the SpaceX vehicle since the California-based rocket company began flying with astronauts from the U.S. space agency in 2020.
FAST TURNOVERS IN FLIGHT
SpaceX, founded in 2002 by Musk, a billionaire and CEO of electric car maker Tesla Inc., which on Monday struck a deal to buy social media platform Twitter, has now launched seven human spaceflights in the past two years.
This includes a team of four organized by the Houston-based company Axiom Space, which crashed on Monday after a two-week stay aboard the ISS, completing the first all-private mission of astronauts to the orbital laboratory.
The launch of Crew 4 before dawn on Wednesday came just 39 hours after the Axiom team parachuted safely into the Atlantic Ocean off the coast of Florida in a separate Crew Dragon capsule.
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The short interval between the descent of the Axiom and the launch of the Crew 4 clearly demonstrates the rapid turnaround capability forged by NASA and SpaceX, at least when weather conditions allow, built around a fleet of reusable missiles and crew capsules.
The lower stage of the Falcon 9 rocket from the Crew 4 launch flew back to Earth for a safe landing just minutes after takeoff on Wednesday, marking the fourth successful flight and recovery of the same SpaceX accelerator. The Crew Dragon Freedom capsule was making its first flight.
Crew 4 was under the command of Lindgren, a board-certified emergency physician and one-time flight surgeon, making his second trip to the ISS, where he entered orbit for 141 days and made two spacewalk trips in 2015.
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ISS FIRST
The designated pilot for the mission was Hines, a rookie astronaut and fighter pilot for the U.S. Air Force, who has accumulated more than 3,500 hours of flight time in 50 aircraft types and completed 76 combat missions.
Watkins, a geologist who received his doctorate from major landslides on Mars and Earth, is also making his debut space flight and was set to become the first African-American to join a long-term mission aboard the ISS.
They were joined by Christophoretti, an ESA astronaut and pilot of the Italian Air Force jet, who made his second flight to the space station and was to take command of ISS operations during the team’s six-month stay, becoming Europe’s first woman. in this role.
The ISS, the largest man-made space object in space, has been continuously occupied since November 2000, run by an international consortium led by the United States and Russia from five space agencies in 15 countries.
An international crew of at least seven usually lives and works aboard the platform while traveling at 5 miles (8 km) per second, orbiting the Earth once every 90 minutes.
The station’s microgravity environment provides scientists with a unique laboratory for conducting experiments on everything from fluid mechanics and combustion to cell growth and aging.
(Report by Joe Skipper in Cape Canaveral, Florida; Writing and additional reports by Steve Gorman in Los Angeles; Editing by Sandra Mahler, Clarence Fernandez, John Stone Street, Lincoln Fest and Leslie Adler)
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