The Crew Dragon spacecraft launched by SpaceX yesterday efficiently docked with the International Space Station as its crew of 4 astronauts started their six-month mission.
The docking happened about 9:16 EST Sunday whereas the 2 spacecrafts have been orbiting above Australia, SpaceX officers mentioned in a streamed broadcast.
Called Crew-7, this journey marks SpaceX’s seventh operational human spaceflight mission to the area station beneath NASA’s Commercial Crew Program. It’s additionally the eleventh time SpaceX has launched people into orbit.
It comes as Boeing Co. — NASA’s different Commercial Crew supplier — works to get its long-delayed Starliner spacecraft able to fly subsequent yr. Delays have raised considerations about NASA’s purpose of getting a number of lifelines to the ISS.
Led by NASA astronaut and commander Jasmin Moghbeli, Saturday’s crew contains Danish astronaut Andreas Mogensen of the European Space Agency, Satoshi Furukawa from the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency and Russian cosmonaut Konstantin Borisov. The crew are slated to remain on board earlier than returning in early 2024.
The 4 astronauts of SpaceX’s Crew-6 mission, who’ve been residing on the ISS since March, will spend the following week welcoming the Crew-7 astronauts earlier than returning to Earth in their very own Crew Dragon capsule, tentatively scheduled for Sept. 1.
NASA and SpaceX had initially hoped to launch Friday, however selected to name off liftoff hours prior to be able to take extra time to research the Dragon’s life-support system.
The launch of Crew-7 comes after SpaceX disclosed points with sticky valves on a earlier Dragon flight — a problem that might have been an issue for Saturday’s flight. During a cargo resupply mission to the area station in June, SpaceX observed {that a} explicit valve within the Dragon cargo capsule had been caught open all through the flight. The valve is supposed to stay open and solely wants to shut if there’s a propellant leak, so it didn’t pose a lot of an issue.
But if there had been a leak, SpaceX would have had a a lot greater concern.
After that mission ended and the Dragon capsule returned to Earth, SpaceX took a take a look at the problematic valve and located proof of corrosion after sending components of it for testing. That triggered the corporate to take a look at valves all through the Dragon fleet.
Source: www.bostonherald.com”