SpaceX and NASA will send a new crew of international astronauts to the space station

(CNN) – SpaceX and NASA are preparing to launch a new crew to the International Space Station, continuing public-private efforts to maintain a fully staffed orbital lab and return astronaut launches to US soil. Crew members from all over the world will take part in this mission – two NASA astronauts, a Russian cosmonaut and an astronaut from the United Arab Emirates.

A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket and Crew Dragon capsule are expected to lift off from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida at 1:45 a.m. ET Monday.

Crew Dragon, the vehicle carrying the astronauts, will separate from the rocket after launch and spend about a day maneuvering in orbit before reuniting with the ISS. The capsule is due to dock with the space station at 2:38 a.m. ET Tuesday.

This mission will be the seventh astronaut flight that SpaceX has carried out on behalf of NASA since 2020.

The Crew-6 crew on board will include NASA astronauts Stephen Bowen, a veteran of three shuttle flights, and Warren Hoburg, first-time spacewalker, as well as Sultan Alneyadi, who will be the second UAE astronaut to ever fly into space. and Russian cosmonaut Andrei Fedyaev.

Once Bowen, Hoburg, Fedyaev and Alneyadi are on board the ISS, they will work to take over the operations of the SpaceX Crew-5 astronauts who arrived at the space station in October 2022.

They are expected to spend up to six months aboard the orbiting laboratory, conducting scientific experiments and maintaining the two-decade-old station.

The mission began when Crew-5 astronauts currently on the ISS encountered a separate transportation problem. In December, a Russian Soyuz spacecraft that was used to carry two cosmonauts and one NASA astronaut to the space station leaked coolant. After the capsule was deemed unsafe for cosmonauts to return, the Russian space agency Roskosmos launched a spare spacecraft on February 23. He arrived at the ISS on Saturday.

Working with Russians

Russian cosmonaut Fedyaev joined the Crew-6 team as part of a sharing agreement signed last year between NASA and Roscosmos. The agreement aims to ensure continued access to the ISS for both Roscosmos and NASA: if either the SpaceX Crew Dragon capsule or the Russian Soyuz spacecraft used to transport people there encounter difficulties and are decommissioned, the other will handle reception of astronauts from both sides. countries into orbit.

This will be Fedyaev’s first space flight.

Despite the ongoing geopolitical tensions caused by the invasion of Ukraine in early 2022, Russia remains the main US partner on the ISS. NASA has repeatedly stated that the conflict did not affect cooperation between the countries’ space agencies.

“Space cooperation has a very long history, and we set an example of how people on Earth should live,” Fedyaev said at a briefing on January 24.

Bowen, a 59-year-old NASA astronaut who will be the commander of the Crew-6 mission, also offered his opinion.

“I have been working and training with astronauts for over 20 years and it has always been amazing,” he said during the briefing. “When you get into space, it’s just one crew, one car, and we all have the same goal.”

Bowen grew up in Cohasset, Massachusetts and studied engineering, earning a bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering from the United States Naval Academy in 1986 and a master’s degree in oceanography from the Joint Program of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in 1993.

He also received military training on a submarine and served in the Navy before being selected by NASA astronauts in 2000, becoming the first submarine officer selected by the space agency.

He previously flew three missions between 2008 and 2011 as part of the NASA Space Shuttle program, spending a total of more than 47 days in space.

“I just hope my body has 12-year-old memories so I can enjoy them,” Bowen said of the Crew-6 launch.

Meet the rest of the Crew-6 team

Hoburg, the mission’s pilot, is a Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania native who received his PhD in electrical and computer science from UC Berkeley before becoming an assistant professor of aeronautics and astronautics at MIT. He joined the NASA astronaut corps in 2017.

“We are going to live in space for six months. I think back six months ago and I think – well, this is a long time,” Hoburg told reporters about his expectations from the trip.

But, added Hoburg, “I’m looking forward to the first look from under the dome,” referring to the well-known area on the ISS with a large window that offers a panoramic view of the Earth.

Alneyadi, who in 2019 was the stand-in for Hazza Al Mansoori, the first UAE astronaut to orbit, is now set to become the first UAE astronaut to complete a long-term space stay.

At a January press conference, Alneyadi said he plans to take Middle Eastern food with him to share with his teammates while in space. A trained jiu-jitsu practitioner, he will also wear a kimono, a traditional martial art form.

“It’s hard to believe that this is really happening,” Alneyadi said at a press conference after arriving at the Kennedy Space Center on February 21. “I can’t ask for a bigger team. I think we are ready – physically, mentally and technically.”

What will they do in space?

During their time in space, Crew 6 astronauts will oversee more than 200 science-focused projects, including investigating how certain substances burn in microgravity and examining microbial samples that will be collected from outside the ISS.

They will take part in two other key missions that will stop at the ISS during their stay. First, the Boeing crew flight test, which will mark the first astronaut mission under the Boeing-NASA partnership. Scheduled for April, the flight will carry NASA astronauts Barry Wilmore and Sunita Williams to the space station, the latest phase of a test and demonstration program Boeing must conduct to certify its Starliner spacecraft for conventional astronaut missions.

Then, in May, a team of four astronauts will arrive at the space station on a mission called AX-2, a privately funded tourist mission. The mission, which will be flown by a separate SpaceX Crew Dragon capsule, will feature former NASA astronaut Peggy Whitson, now a private astronaut with Texas-based space tourism company Axiom, who brokered and organized the mission.

It will also include three paying customers, just like the AX-1 mission that visited the ISS last year.

Bowen said in January that both the Boeing CFT mission and the AX-2 would be major milestones.

“This is another paradigm shift,” he said. “These two events – huge events – in spaceflight, happening during our increment, in addition to all the other work that we have to do, I don’t think we’ll be able to fully appreciate it until that happens.”

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