Crew-7 astronauts are already inside the ISS and begin a 6-month mission

The astronauts of the Crew-7 mission of the POT and Spacex, which arrived this Sunday at the International Space Station (ISS) aboard the Dragon Endurance spacecraft, are already inside the orbital laboratory and begin today “a six month mission”confirmed the US space agency.

“Welcome aboard Crew7! Members of Crew-7 today joined the seven-member Exp 69 crew aboard the space station, expanding their population to 11″, said the ISS on X (former Twitter).

This Sunday “They are beginning a mission of about six months living and working in our orbital laboratory,” NASA added on the same social network.

The Crew-7 mission, the seventh manned mission to the ISS by NASA and SpaceX, is led by astronaut Jasmin Moghbeli, selected by NASA in 2017, and Andreas Mogensen, from the European Space Agency (ESA), who is the first Danish astronaut in history.

In addition, astronauts Satoshi Furukawa, from the Japanese agency JAXA, and Konstantin Borisov, from the Russian Roscosmos, traveled on the ship.

The spacecraft, which carried an international crew of four members representing four countries, docked autonomously to the spaceport of the ISS’s Harmony module at 9:16 a.m. Eastern Time (13:16 GMT), according to a broadcast on straight.

The Dragon spacecraft hatch opened at 10:58 a.m. ET (1458 GMT), shortly after the station crew opened another hatch located “between the space station and the pressurized docking adapter”detailed the mission blog.

In live images, the ISS hosts could be seen welcoming the new astronauts with hugs.

In doing so, Crew-7 joins the Expedition 69 crew of NASA astronauts Stephen Bowen, Woody Hoburg and Frank Rubio, as well as United Arab Emirates (United Arab Emirates) astronaut Sultan Alneyadi and the Roscosmos cosmonauts Sergey Prokopyev, Dmitri Petelin and Andrey Fedyaev.

For a short time, NASA details, the number of crew members on board the ISS will increase to 11 until the members of Crew-6 (Bowen, Hoburg, Alneyadi and Fedyaev) return to Earth a few days later.

The arrival of Crew-7 was broadcast live on NASA’s YouTube channel from the early hours of the morning and it was possible to observe how the Endurance’s nose opened and then the docking maneuver.

The takeoff, described by NASA as “successful”was conducted early Saturday morning from Launch Complex 39A (LC-39A) at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida.

In a statement, Bill Nelson, NASA administrator, said yesterday that the “Crew-7 is a shining example of the power of American ingenuity and what we can achieve when we work together.”

During their stay in the orbital laboratory, the Crew-7 crew will perform “science and technology demonstrations to prepare for human exploration beyond low-Earth orbit and benefit humanity on Earth.” slogan about the SpaceX mission on its website.

Source: EFE