The crew of Crew-6 will spend about 6 months on the ISS to carry out more than 200 experiments in microgravity and maintenance tasks.
The four crew members of the are you Crew-6 NASA departed early this Thursday from Cape Canaveral (USA) heading to the International Space Station (ISS)on board a ship Dragon de SpaceX.
At the scheduled time, 0:34 local time (5:34 GMT), a falcon 9 rocket with the Dragon Endeavor at the top, he took off from platform 39A of the Kennedy Space Center for about eight minutes later to separate and the ship will continue the journey on its own at about 17,500 miles per hour (more than 28,000 km / h), .
On board Endeavour, which with Crew-6 completes its fourth mission, they Stephen Bowen y Warren Hoburgfrom the US agency NASA, commander and pilot of the mission, respectively, and the specialists Sultan Alneyadiof the space agency of the United Arab Emirates, and Andrey Fedyaevfrom the Russian company Roscosmos.
As usual, less than ten minutes after takeoff, the reusable part of the Falcon 9 successfully returned to the platform. ‘Just Read the Instructions’ by SpaceX located in the Atlntico.
“That was a great trip,” an emotional Hoburg told mission controllers, while Alneyadi, after a few words in Arabic, noted that this mission is the beginning of an interesting era.
The private firm’s ship is expected to arrive at the ISS and dock at the mdulo Harmony at 1:17 p.m. (6:17 GMT) on Friday. Little more than two hours later they will be received by members of Expedition 68 from the orbital laboratory.
After the takeoff of the mission, the deputy director of the Kennedy Space Center, Kelvin Manninghighlighted in statements to NASA TV that today’s launch is a good reflection of what the alliance between the Government, private industry and international partners can achieve.
“And we are just beginning,” said the manager, who alluded to the 90 launches planned for this year from Cape Canaveral, among which he highlighted the one that will send the CFT test mission to the ISS, the first manned mission of the nave Starliner the Boeing.
TAKEOFF SUCCESSFUL ON THE THIRD ATTEMPT
Crew-6 was finally able to take off today after two postponements caused by technical reasons.
The launch was originally scheduled for last Sunday but was pushed back to Monday for additional thermal analysis of the panels on the outside of the capsule, as well as a check on some helium canisters on the Falcon 9 rocket.
However, last Monday, less than three minutes before takeoff, it had to be aborted due to a problem suddenly detected in the airflow. triethylaluminio triethylboro (TEA-TEB) used to start the rocket’s first stage engines.
NASA and SpaceX determined that a ground filter in the TEA-TEB pass-through system was clogged and replaced it, purged the tubing with nitrogen, and verified that the entire system was clean and ready for the new launch attempt.
Except for Bowen, who between 2008 and 2011 participated in three expeditions aboard NASA space shuttles, for the other three crew members this is their first trip into space.
MORE THAN 200 SCIENTIFIC EXPERIMENTS AND TECHNICAL TASKS
The crew of Crew-6 will stay on the ISS for about six months, during which time they will carry out more than 200 scientific experiments in microgravity and maintenance tasks.
Some of the experiments entrusted to Crew-6 have to do with combustion in “microgravity” and the effects of space flight on the immune system and organs of humans.
To study the effects that manned missions can have in space, Crew-6 astronauts will venture outside the ISS to collect samples from vents from the station.
The goal is to see if the ISS is releasing microorganisms into space and, if so, how many and how far they could travel.
The results of this particular experiment could alter the design of future space missions and the astronauts’ suits to limit possible contamination.
Crew-6, like NASA’s other Space X missions, will pave the way “for human exploration beyond low-Earth orbit and to improve life on Earth,” according to NASA spokespersons.
The US Space Agency plans to send a manned mission to the Moon in 2024 as part of the Artemis program.
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