Astronauts arrive at the space station aboard SpaceX – Science

SpaceX’s recycled Crew Dragon Endeavor capsule, with four astronauts on board International Space Station (ISS) This Saturday, according to the company. This was the third time he had been Elon Musk Bringing crew members to the laboratory in orbit.

The first docking stage took place at 09:30 GMT, 6h08 Brasilia time, about 420 km over the southern Indian Ocean, according to photos previously reported live. US space agency (NASA). The second stage happened 10 minutes later, when 12 hooks were securely connected between Endeavor and the port of the International Space Station.

International Space Station Commander Shannon Walker from the United States said, “Fully Captive, Hello Crew 2.” Endeavor captain, Countryman Shane Kimbro, replied, “Thank you Shannon, we are happy to be here, and we’ll see you all in a few minutes.”

Mission Crew-2, which also includes Frenchman Thomas Pesquet, American Megan MacArthur and Japanese Akiko Hoshid, It took off before dawn on Friday the 23rd, From Platform 39A to the Kennedy Space Center in Florida.

Two hours after the docking was complete, the Endeavor quartet snapped photos with the last team sent by SpaceX and three Russian astronauts, making the International Space Station unusually crowded with 11 people. “It’s been 20 years since then. Jaxa (Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency), Which – which Pesquet (European Space Agency), NASA and the Russian cosmonaut were all in space together, so what’s happening today is very historic. We are looking forward to starting our work on the space station, and we cannot wait to see, “What this adventure will bring.”

“Endeavor is coming!” you are welcome in @ Space StationCrew 2!

Their arrival means that there are now 11 people on board our orbiting laboratory, a number not seen since the space shuttle era. Hugging too much. pic.twitter.com/uSwW3JFl6K NASA (@ NASA) April 24, 2021

SpaceX has completed moving its third crew to the International Space Station, as part of a multi-million dollar contract that NASA has signed with Elon Musk. This is Endeavor’s second flight to the International Space Station. The first was with Demo-2 mission in May 2020, Which ended nearly a decade of the United States’ dependence on Russia to travel to the International Space Station, after NASA ended the space shuttle program.

It was the first time that a manned spaceflight capsule had been reused, and the mission also included a reused rocket, reaching cost-cutting targets in NASA’s partnerships with the private industry.

Musk makes no secret of his intention to push humanity toward the moon and Mars, saying at a post-launch press conference on Friday: “I think we are at the dawn of a new era of space exploration.”

The mission is also an important landmark for Europe, which named the “Alpha” mission in honor of the Alpha Centauri star system. “For us, this is really a golden age in terms of exploring the International Space Station,” said Frank de Winn, European Space Station program director for the European Space Agency.

Team Crew-2 has around 100 trials to conduct its six-month mission. This includes examining what is known as “tissue fragments”: small models of human organs made up of different types of cells and used for study, such as the aging of the immune system, kidney function and loss of muscle mass.

As for the environment, when Crew-2 returns in the autumn of the Northern Hemisphere, it will have obtained 1.5 million images of the Earth, documenting phenomena such as artificial lighting at night, algal blooms, and platforms that break Antarctic ice.

Another important component of the mission is to upgrade the plant’s solar power system and install new compact panels that open up like a huge yoga mat./ France Press agency