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Four astronauts were launched, representing four countries and space agencies around the world A SpaceX rocket headed to the International Space Station to begin a mission expected to last more than six months.
The crew is on a mission aboard the SpaceX Crew Dragon Endurance capsule called Crew-7. The spacecraft launched Saturday at 3:27 a.m. ET atop a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida.
Four astronauts on the mission include NASA’s Jasmine Mogberg, who will serve as mission commander. Danish astronaut Andreas Mogensen representing the European Space Agency. Mr. Satoshi Furukawa of the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA). and Russian cosmonaut Konstantin Borisov in Roscosmos.
After reaching orbit, the Crew Dragon capsule detached from the Falcon 9 rocket and began its solo journey through orbit. The spacecraft will spend more than 24 hours carefully navigating toward the space station orbiting about 220 nautical miles (420 kilometers) above the surface.
“Space travel is hard, but you make it look easy,” Mogberg said as he was dispatched from the Crew Dragon capsule to SpaceX’s control room after launch.
“We are a united team with a common mission,” she added. “Go Crew-7. Great ride.”
The crew is expected to dock with the space station around 8:39 a.m. Eastern time on Sunday.
Upon boarding, Mogberg, Mogensen, Furukawa, and Borisov join the seven astronauts. I’m already in the Orbital Lab.
In about five days, the Crew-7 astronauts will take over duties from SpaceX’s Crew-6 astronauts who have been on the space station since March.
The mission will be the eighth flight that NASA and SpaceX will operate as part of the agency’s Commercial Crew Program, which has transported astronauts to the space station since the first manned mission in 2020.
Crew-7 astronauts represent the most internationally diverse SpaceX crew to date.
“We are very proud to be part of this amazing crew and know that we are personally humbled. Looking at the four patches, each one has a different national flag. You can see it being drawn,” Mogberg said at a press conference. , took place shortly after the crew arrived in Florida this Sunday. The mission commander mentioned the flag patch adorning the left shoulder of the astronaut’s suit. “I hope this represents what we can achieve when we come together and work together. And we believe this is what the International Space Station really means.”
The crew also collaborated on the design official mission patchcontains a depiction of a dragon perched on top of the earth.
“We wanted to show that we hope that everything we do on this mission will ultimately benefit our beautiful home planet and the people who live there,” Mogberg said. flags of all four nations represented by the Crew-7 mission, adding that the red, white, and blue stripes on the dragon’s tail represent the colors that make up the Earth.
During their stay on the space station, which is expected to last approximately 190 days, the Crew-7 astronauts will carefully observe different worlds. experiment. The research will include investigating potential risks of spreading bacteria and fungi from human-led space missions. The researchers plan to analyze whether microbes could be expelled from space station vents and exhaled into the vacuum of space.
Another ESA project will examine how sleep in microgravity differs from Earth by analyzing the brain waves of astronauts while they are asleep. Yet another experiment will look at the formation of biofilms in space station wastewater, which could be key to finding better ways to recycle water for drinking and hygiene during spaceflights. (Yes, astronauts have long used recycled sweat and urine. drink and shower It’s above the station. )
General Mogberg was born to Iranian parents in Bad Nauheim, Germany, near Frankfurt, but considers Baldwin on Long Island, New York, his hometown.
After graduating from high school, he earned a bachelor’s degree in aerospace engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He then earned a master’s degree in aerospace engineering from the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, California.
Mogberg also has military experience, having served as a Marine Corps test pilot and has completed over 150 combat missions and logged over 2,000 flight hours.
She was selected to join NASA’s Astronaut Corps in 2017, and the Crew-7 mission will be her first foray into space.
“This is something I’ve wanted to do for as long as I can remember,” Mogberg said at a July 25 press conference. “One of the things I’m most excited about is looking back at our beautiful planet. Told.”
Borisov became the third astronaut to fly on a US-made spacecraft with the Russian space agency Roscosmos as part of a seat swap agreement signed between NASA and Roscosmos in 2022.
Carpooling to the space station has been a long-standing tradition for NASA and Roscosmos, with Roscosmos being the only transport for many years after NASA withdrew from the Space Shuttle program in 2011. But this latest carpooling deal cast a big shadow over NASA’s end. This year comes amid heightened tensions between the United States and Russia over the ongoing war in Ukraine.
NASA has repeatedly said that tensions on the ground have not affected continued cooperation between the two countries in the space sector.
Like Mogberg, Borisov makes his first space flight.
“I’m really, really excited and honored to be part of the international crew,” he said Sunday. “Experienced astronauts and astronauts say that when they go to the ISS and look at the Earth, they see that there are no borders.
SpaceX’s Crew Dragon and Russia’s Soyuz are currently the only vehicles that can take astronauts to and from the space station, but NASA hopes to bring in another provider in the coming months. Boeing’s Starliner, like SpaceX, is under NASA’s commercial crew contract program and is set to enter service next year after a delay of several years.
Crew-7 mission pilot Mogensen is from Copenhagen and holds a Bachelor’s degree from Copenhagen International School and a Master’s degree in Aeronautical Engineering from Imperial College London, UK. He also holds a PhD in Aerospace Engineering from the University of Texas at Austin.
Before being selected for ESA’s astronaut training in 2009, he was a Research Fellow at the Surrey Space Center in the UK, studying spacecraft navigation and control for lunar landings.
The mission will be the second spaceflight, following a 10-day flight to the space station by Russia’s Soyuz mission in 2015.
“It’s hard to describe how amazing the International Space Station is,” Mogensen said at a press conference on Sunday. “I didn’t realize it until just before docking on the first mission, until I looked out the window…and saw a huge solar array spread out in space next to me.
“It really made me realize how unique and amazing laboratories we humans have built in low earth orbit over the past 20-25 years.”
FurukawaThe only Crew-7 astronaut with spaceflight experience, he was born in Kanagawa Prefecture, Japan, just south of Tokyo. He holds a medical degree and doctorate from the University of Tokyo and works as a clinical surgeon.
He was selected as a JAXA astronaut in 1999 and completed his first mission to the space station (a 165-day stay) in 2011 after being launched on NASA’s final Space Shuttle mission, STS-135. did.
Furukawa enjoys delving into scientific exploration, including research that recreates the microgravity environment on the space station and could help develop new drugs, as well as projects that could help us learn how humans might one day explore the moon. Said he was doing it.
After arriving at the space station, Crew 7 astronauts said goodbye to SpaceX Crew 6 astronauts, who are due to fly home aboard the spacecraft Crew Dragon Endeavor in the coming days.
In mid-September, the space station crew will also welcome NASA cosmonaut Loral O’Hara, along with astronauts Oleg Kononenko and Nikolai Chuv, who will be launched on a Russian Soyuz MS-24 capsule. is.