The Falcon 9s booster will land on a drone ship in the Atlantic Ocean. The launch window opens at 09:00 AM ET and concludes at 11:42 AM ET. The Crew 6 team will be welcomed aboard the space station by seven current ISS occupants – three NASA crew members, including commander Nicole Aunapu Mann, the first Native American woman to fly to space, along with three Russians and a Japanese astronaut. MISSION: SpaceXs Starlink is the constellation of networked satellites aimed to provide internet services to those who are not yet connected, and to provide reliable and affordable internet across the globe. Rounding out the four-man Crew 6 was Russian cosmonaut Andrey Fedyaev, 42, who like Alneyadi is an engineer and spaceflight rookie designated as a mission specialist for the team.įedyaev is the second cosmonaut to fly aboard an American spacecraft under a renewed ride-sharing deal signed in July by NASA and the Russian space agency Roscosmos, despite heightened tensions between Washington and Moscow over Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. soil as part of a long-duration space station team. The Crew 6 mission also was notable for its inclusion of UAE astronaut Sultan Alneyadi, 41, only the second person from his country to fly to space and the first to launch from U.S. Fellow NASA astronaut Warren “Woody” Hoburg, 37, an engineer and commercial aviator designated as the Crew 6 pilot, was making his first spaceflight. Navy submarine officer who has logged more than 40 days in orbit as a veteran of three Space Shuttle flights and seven spacewalks. The rest of their time at the station, NASA’s freeze-dried chow will have to do.The latest ISS crew was led by Bowen, 59, a onetime U.S. After about five years, the company plans to detach its compartments to form a self-sustaining station - one of several commercial outposts intended to replace the space station once it’s retired and NASA shifts to the moon.Īt an adjacent pad during Friday’s launch: NASA’s new moon rocket, which is awaiting completion of a dress rehearsal for a summertime test flight.Īs a gift for their seven station hosts, the four visitors are taking up paella and other Spanish cuisine prepared by celebrity chef José Andrés. More customer trips will follow, with Axiom adding its own rooms to the orbiting complex beginning in 2024. SpaceX’s fifth flight of NASA astronauts to the station is coming up in just a couple weeks.Īxiom is targeting next year for its second private flight to the space station. Jeff Bezos’ rocket company Blue Origin is taking customers on 10-minute rides to the edge of space, while Virgin Galactic expects to start flying customers on its rocket ship later this year.įriday‘s flight is the second private charter for Elon Musk’s SpaceX, which took a billionaire and his guests on a three-day orbit ride last year. The three businessmen are the latest to take advantage of the opening of space to those with deep pockets. “They’re not up there to paste their nose on the window,” said Axiom’s co-founder and president, Michael Suffredini, a former NASA space station program manager. “But man, was this launch a great start,” she told reporters.Įach visitor has a full slate of experiments to conduct during their stay, one reason they don’t like to be called space tourists. NASA’s Kathy Lueders, head of space operations, said there’s a lot to learn from this first wholly private station visit. “There’s no fuzz, I think, on what the dangers are or what the bad days could look like,” Lopez-Alegria told The Associated Press before the flight. SpaceX and NASA have been upfront with them about the risks of spaceflight, said Lopez-Alegria, who spent seven months at the space station 15 years ago. Stibbe did a little dance when he arrived at the launch pad at Kennedy Space Center. and Israel’s Eytan Stibbe, a former fighter pilot and founding partner of Vital Capital.īefore the flight, their enthusiasm was obvious. The private Axiom Space company arranged the visit with NASA for its three paying customers: Larry Connor of Dayton, Ohio, who runs the Connor Group Mark Pathy, founder and CEO of Montreal’s Mavrik Corp.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |