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Elon Musk’s SpaceX sent four people to the International Space Station from Florida to begin its 11th human space mission.
The mission Crew-7, for NASA will bring the group up to the space station for a six-month stay in orbit
On Saturday morning, Elon Musk’s commercial space company SpaceX successfully sent four astronauts on its crew-7 mission off to the International Space Station from Kennedy Space Center in Florida. The launch by the company was a great success. The Falcon 9 launch vehicle’s first stage rocket returned to earth, while the second stage propelled the Dragon spacecraft into orbit before separation. The Dragon spacecraft is currently on a 30-hour journey to the space station.
@SpaceX @NASA Saturday launch to ISS: Dragon capsule touch screens. pic.twitter.com/58Mtc8LKIZ
— Allen Root (@DowJonesAl) August 26, 2023
Crew-7 consists of NASA astronaut Jasmin Moghbeli as the commander, European Space Agency astronaut Andreas Mogensen from Denmark as the pilot, and Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency astronaut Satoshi Furukawa and Roscosmos cosmonaut Konstantin Borisov as mission specialists.
All four astronauts were from different countries including Japan, Denmark, Russia and U.S. The crew was responsible to do the scientific research related to human space exploration. Bill Nelson, NASA administrator says that, “Crew-7 is a shining example of the power of both American ingenuity and what we can accomplish when we work together, by partnering with countries around the world, NASA is engaging the best scientific minds to enable our bold missions, and it’s clear that we can do more—and we can learn more—when we work together.”
In 2011, after the Space Shuttle was retired the United State was unable to deploy crews into space. In 2020, SpaceX continued its progress to launch again. Without any major incidents, it has continued to send astronauts into orbit for NASA.
@SpaceX @NASA Saturday launch to ISS: Good view of 2nd stage Merlin engine while 1st stage lands. pic.twitter.com/yqFovd3nLr
— Allen Root (@DowJonesAl) August 26, 2023
Indeed, it was a mission and the team of the crew-7 mission, which was comprised of the Russian Konstantin Borisov, Satoshi Furukawa, and Andreas Mogensen of Denmark, is supervised by American Jasmin Moghbeli. Around 3:27 a.m., a Falcon 9 rocket carrying the Dragon spacecraft blasted out from Launch Complex 39A at NASA’s Kennedy Space Centre in Florida in front of nearly 10,000 spectators.
According to NASA, “We have liftoff!”
We have liftoff! Endurance ascends to space. Next stop for #Crew7: the @Space_Station. pic.twitter.com/UW5Db3HH7C
— NASA (@NASA) August 26, 2023
According to the report presented by Al-Jazeera, as soon as the giant Dragon vehicle broke from the Falcon 9 rocket along with the crew in orbit, there were cheers in mission control. Moghbeli said,”We may have four crew members on board from four different nations … but we’re a united team with a common mission.”
According to NASA, the team of engineers needed an extra day to inspect a portion of the Crew Dragon capsule’s environmental control and life support system therefore, the launch was postponed to Saturday. It has been decided that the Spacecraft will send the four crew members back to Earth in few days after docking with the human outpost 400 kilometres above the planet in less than 24 hours.
The mission is Moghbeli and Borisov’s first space voyage. Moghbeli says, “This is something I’ve wanted to do for as long as I can remember, one of the things I’m most excited about is looking back at our beautiful planet”. In addition, he also stated that, “Everyone who I’ve talked to who has flown already has said that was a life-changing perspective – and also floating around in space, it seems really fun.”
The first routine voyage from Elon Musk was introduced back in 2020. Whereas, the crew-7 is the seventh. As part of a commercial crew programme it developed to cut down reliance on Russian rockets for astronaut transportation after the space shuttle programme ended in 2011.
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