The Crew-7 mission from NASA and SpaceX arrived at the International Space Station (ISS) this Sunday aboard the Endurance Dragon spacecraft to join the Expedition 69 crew in the orbiting laboratory.
According to the live feed, the spacecraft was carrying an international crew of four representing four countries and autonomously docked with the launch pad of the ISS Harmony module at 9:16 am ET.
“Docking confirmed. The Dragon spacecraft carrying four space travelers has arrived at the space station,” NASA wrote on X (formerly Twitter).
The docking maneuver was slow until the spacecraft found the correct position.
The trip to the orbital laboratory, as confirmed by NASA, took about 30 hours. Approximately two hours later, after pressure equalization between the Endurance spacecraft and the ISS, the hatch will open and the newcomers will meet with the Expedition 69 astronauts.
The arrival of Crew 7 was broadcast live on NASA’s YouTube channel from early in the morning, and Endurance Base could be seen reopening after the docking maneuver.
Crew-7 is the US Space Administration’s seventh manned flight to the ISS by NASA and SpaceX and is led by astronaut Jasmine Mogbeli, selected by NASA in 2017, and Andreas Mogensen of the European Space Agency (ESA), who is the first Danish astronaut in history.
Also traveling were astronauts Satoshi Furukawa of Japan’s JAXA agency and Konstantin Borisov of Russia’s Roscosmos.
The launch, described by NASA as “successful,” took place Saturday morning from Launch Complex 39A (LC-39A) at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida.
In a statement, NASA Administrator Bill Nelson said Saturday that “Crew 7 is a shining example of the power of American ingenuity and what is possible when we work together.”
As for the ISS Expedition 69 crew, it includes NASA astronauts Stephen Bowen, Woody Hoburgh and Frank Rubio, as well as UAE astronaut Sultan Alneyadi and Roscosmos cosmonauts Sergey Prokopyev, Dmitry Petelin and Andrey Fedyaev.
Within a short period, NASA says, the number of crew aboard the ISS will increase to 11, until Crew-6 members return to Earth a few days later.
Author: Portuguese
Source: CM Jornal
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