SpaceX launches mission that will help NASA prepare for a trip to the Moon – 02/03/2023 – Science

A SpaceX rocket with two American astronauts, a Russian cosmonaut and a Saudi astronaut took off this Thursday (2) towards the International Space Station (ISS).

The takeoff took place at 00:34 (02:34 GMT) from the Kennedy Space Center, in Florida, southeastern United States.

“Congratulations to the NASA and SpaceX teams on another historic mission to the International Space Station!” NASA Administrator Bill Nelson said in a statement.

“Crew-6 will be very busy on the ISS, performing 200 experiments that will help us prepare for missions to the Moon, Mars and beyond,” he added.

Initially, the launch was scheduled for Monday (27), but ended up being canceled due to a problem in the ground systems.

NASA explained this Wednesday (2) that the problem affected the supply of the liquid used to activate the engines and that it had been caused by a “clogged filter”, which was replaced.

After the unexpected, the agency said on Twitter that the rocket with Dragon Endeavor took off this Thursday “lighting up the sky, while the crew goes to orbit”.

The Dragon capsule is due to dock with the ISS at 1:17 am (3:17 am GMT) on Friday, after a journey of just over 24 hours. The team must remain at the station for six months.

The multicultural crew is made up of Americans Stephen Bowen and Warren Hoburg, Russian Andrei Fediayev and Emirati Sultan Al Neyadi.

Neyadi, 41, is the fourth astronaut from an Arab country in history and the first from his country to spend six months in space. His compatriot, Hazzaa Al Mansoori, carried out an eight-day mission in 2019.

The mission also includes a Russian cosmonaut, at a time when tensions between Washington and Moscow are at an all-time high, a year after the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

It is the second Russian to fly to the ISS on a SpaceX spacecraft, although American astronauts often travel on Russian Soyuz spacecraft.

“We’re all professionals. We’re mission focused,” said Bowen, a veteran of three space missions. “We’ve always had a fantastic relationship with cosmonauts when we’re in space.”

It was already foreseen, before the Moscow offensive, that the Russians would travel on SpaceX, and the Americans, on the Russian Soyuz spacecraft, an exchange program that was maintained. The ISS is one of the last fields of cooperation between the two countries.

NASA hires the services of the American company to send its astronauts approximately every six months to the orbital station.

Astronauts carry out scientific experiments and maintain the station, which has been manned for over 22 years.

Crew-6 will replace the four members of Crew-5 (two Americans, one Russian and one Japanese), who arrived in October 2022 and will return to Earth aboard their own SpaceX spacecraft.

Also on board the ISS are three other crew members (two Russians and one American), who arrived in a Soyuz spacecraft.

The Russian rocket suffered a leak in December. The Russian space agency, Roscosmos, sent a rescue craft, which successfully docked with the ISS on Saturday.