Elon Musk-owned SpaceX and the US space agency NASA are preparing to launch a fresh crew to the International Space Station. SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket is carrying two NASA astronauts, a Russian cosmonaut and an astronaut from the United Arab Emirates.
The SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket and Crew Dragon capsule are expected to take off from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida, at 1:45 a.m. ET (12:15 pm IST) Monday.
According to a CNN report, the Crew Dragon, the vehicle carrying the astronauts, will detach from the rocket after launch and spend about one day maneuvering through orbit before linking up with the ISS. The capsule is slated to dock with the space station at 2:38 a.m. ET Tuesday.
As per NASA, the Crew-6 launch will carry two NASA astronauts, Mission Commander Stephen Bowen and Pilot Warren Hoburg, along with UAE (United Arab Emirates) astronaut Sultan Alneyadi, and Roscosmos cosmonaut Andrey Fedyaev, who will serve as mission specialists for a space station science expedition.
Alneyadi, 41, will be the fourth astronaut from an Arab country and the second from the oil-rich United Arab Emirates to journey to space; his countryman Hazzaa al-Mansoori flew an eight-day mission in 2019.
According to an AFP report, Hoburg, the Endeavour pilot, and Fedyaev, the Russian mission specialist, will also be making their first space flights. Fedyaev is the second Russian cosmonaut to fly to the ISS aboard a SpaceX rocket. NASA astronauts fly regularly to the station on Russian Soyuz capsules.
This is the sixth crew rotation mission with astronauts using the SpaceX Dragon spacecraft on a Falcon 9 rocket to the orbiting laboratory as part of the agency’s Commercial Crew Programme. This Dragon is named Endeavour.
The team is expected to spend up to six months on board the orbiting laboratory, carrying out science experiments and maintaining the two-decade-old station. The mission comes as the Crew-5 astronauts currently on the ISS have been grappling with a separate transportation issue.
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