The International Space Station will have new tenants for the next six monthsthe crew of Crew-4, made up of three astronauts of the American space agency NASA and one of the European ESAthat in his stay will perform more than 200 experimentsas well as spacewalks.
The new crew already traveling to the station as part of Expedition 67 is made up by Commander Kjell Lindgren, pilot Robert Hines and specialist Jessica Watkins, all three from NASA, in addition to Italian specialist Samantha Cristoforetti, from ESA.
The two men and the two women travel in the capsule of SpaceX Dragon Freedomwhich took off this Wednesday on a Falcon 9 rocket from the same company at 7:52 GMT from platform 39A of the Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral (Florida).
“Liftoff! The last few days at the Kennedy Space Center have been inspiring and busy with the return of the Axiom crew and now the successful launch of the Crew-4 astronauts to the International Space Station,” said Space Station Administrator NASA, Bill Nelson.
On board the space laboratory, he added, the four will carry out research that will help NASA prepare for longer stays on the Moon, and eventually on Mars.
The spacecraft with the four astronauts separated from the launcher about twelve minutes after takeoff to undertake a journey of about 16/17 hours to the International Space Station (ISS).
There, when it arrives, it will be attached to the Harmony module, which until this Saturday was occupied by the Dragon Endeavour, in which the first private mission, Ax-1, organized by the Texas company Axiom Space, traveled to this laboratory.
In the docking maneuver to the space station, the Crew-4 astronauts will receive the help of the members of Crew-3, who arrived at the space laboratory on November 11.
Thus, Lindgren, Hines, Watkins and Cristoforetti will join the Expedition 67 crew of the space station made up of Raja Chari, Thomas Marshburn and Kayla Barron, all of them NASA astronauts, Matthias Maurer of ESA, and cosmonauts Oleg Artemyev, Sergey Korsakov, and Denis Matveev of Roscosmos.
For a brief period of time, the number of crew members aboard the space station will increase to 11 until the Crew-3 astronauts (Chari, Marshburn, Barron and Maurer) return to Earth a few days later.
During NASA’s broadcast of the liftoff, the Crew-4 astronauts could be seen inside the capsule, sitting strapped in their black and white spacesuits. It was also observed that they travel accompanied by two small stuffed animals, a turtle and a monkey, which passed from hand to hand or floated around the cabin.
The astronauts will spend about six months on the space station, during which time they will carry out more than 200 scientific and technical experiments, and could carry out two spacewalks to replace the solar panels of the veteran orbital station.
The four will research in areas such as materials science, health technologies and plant sciencewith the goal of preparing for human exploration beyond low Earth orbit and benefiting life on Earth.
Among the planned experiments are studies of organic materials, search for solutions for degenerative eye diseases, work on how sutured wounds heal in microgravity and on the aging of the immune system.
For Hines and Watkins it will be their first space flight and the second for Lindgren and Cristoforetti, who celebrated his birthday yesterday.
The only active woman astronaut at ESA will develop the Minerva mission, in which she will carry out and support more than 35 European and other international experiments.
Each astronaut has the power to choose the name of their mission and Cristoforetti explained in a recent press conference that Minerva’s is inspired by the Roman goddess of wisdom, “of which there is never enough”, crafts and the arts, a tribute to the people around the world who make spaceflight possible.
Among many other projects, the Italian will study the effect of microgravity on ovarian cells and will carry out a project on the antioxidant potential of some nanoparticles to prevent neuronal degeneration.
Extra virgin olive oil will be the protagonist of another study, a product of which he also carries a small amount to consume with the rest of the crew.
“It gives me great pleasure to see the successful launch of Samantha Cristoforetti and her fellow Crew-4 members. Samantha will take over from Matthias Maurer and continue to represent Europe and support European experiments on board the space station throughout her mission,” said ESA Director General Josef Aschbacher. (I)
Source: Eluniverso
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