{"id":10332,"date":"2023-08-26T19:26:32","date_gmt":"2023-08-26T11:26:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp-productionenv-bjg9h2g2bgg5b8aa.southeastasia-01.azurewebsites.net\/news\/spacex-launches-first-all-international-crew-to-space-station\/"},"modified":"2023-08-26T19:26:32","modified_gmt":"2023-08-26T11:26:32","slug":"spacex-launches-first-all-international-crew-to-space-station","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/news\/spacex-launches-first-all-international-crew-to-space-station\/","title":{"rendered":"SpaceX launches first all-international crew to space station"},"content":{"rendered":"<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_63385\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-63385\" style=\"width: 678px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/spaceflightnow.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/08\/20230826-Crew-7-Launch-MC.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"678\" height=\"381\" class=\"size-full wp-image-63385\" srcset=\"https:\/\/spaceflightnow.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/08\/20230826-Crew-7-Launch-MC.jpg 678w, https:\/\/spaceflightnow.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/08\/20230826-Crew-7-Launch-MC-300x169.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 678px) 100vw, 678px\"><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-63385\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">A SpaceX Falcon 9 liftoff with an international crew riding aboard a Dragon capsule on Aug. 26, 2023. Image: Michael Cain\/Spaceflight Now.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>Running a day late, a SpaceX Crew Dragon capsule carrying a NASA commander, a Danish co-pilot, a Japanese astronaut and a Russian cosmonaut rocketed into orbit early Saturday and set off after the International Space Station for a six-month tour of duty.<\/p>\n<p>With Marine Corps helicopter test pilot Jasmin Moghbeli and European Space Agency astronaut Andreas Mogensen monitoring cockpit displays, the crew\u2019s Falcon 9 rocket roared to life at 3:27 a.m. EDT and majestically climbed away from historic pad 39A at the Kennedy Space Center atop 1.7 million pounds of thrust.<\/p>\n<p>Launching on a northeasterly trajectory that matched that of the space station, the Falcon 9 smoothly accelerated as its nine first-stage engines consumed propellants, putting on a fiery overnight spectacle for area residents and tourists.<\/p>\n<p>Two-and-a-half minutes after liftoff, the first stage was jettisoned to fly itself back to a successful landing at the Cape Canaveral Space Force Station while the second stage continued the climb to orbit.<\/p>\n<p>Nine minutes after liftoff, the second stage engine shut down as planned and three minutes after that, the Crew Dragon spacecraft was released to fly on its own.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cHello Crew-7,\u201d the SpaceX launch director radioed. \u201cOn behalf of the entire SpaceX launch and recovery team, I\u2019m honored to welcome Dragon\u2019s first ever all-international crew to orbit. Godspeed, Crew-7.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThanks for the ride, it was awesome!\u201d Moghbeli replied. \u201cOn behalf of Andy, Satoshi, (Konstantin) and I, we\u2019d like to thank the multitude of people who brought us to this unique moment. We may have four crew members on board from four different nations \u2014 Denmark, Japan, Russia and the USA \u2014 but we\u2019re a united team with a united mission. \u2026 Go Crew-7! Awesome ride!\u201d<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"YouTube video player\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/fW9Z4VXs2ic\" width=\"678\" height=\"381\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>If all goes well,  Moghbeli, Mogensen, Japanese astronaut-surgeon Satoshi Furukawa and Russian cosmonaut Konstantin Borisov will catch up with the space station early Sunday, matching the lab\u2019s 260-mile-high altitude and 17,000 mph velocity.<\/p>\n<p>Continuing its automated approach, the Crew Dragon is expected to dock at the Harmony module\u2019s space-facing port at 8:39 a.m., 29 hours after launch.<\/p>\n<p>SpaceX has now launched eight Crew Dragons to the space station for NASA \u2014 one piloted test flight and seven operational crew rotation missions \u2014 along with two privately funded commercial flights with non-government astronauts.<\/p>\n<p>NASA and SpaceX had planned to launch the Crew-7 mission early Friday, but the flight was scrubbed six hours before launch to resolve \u201copen paperwork\u201d needed to verify that an oxygen valve in the Crew Dragon\u2019s life support system would work with the required safety margin.<\/p>\n<p>Another problem cropped up during the final stages of the countdown Saturday: a sensor reading indicating a possible nitrogen tetroxide leak in the Crew Dragon\u2019s propulsion system. Known as NTO, nitrogen tetroxide is an extremely toxic propellant, but with just minutes to spare, SpaceX engineers concluded the leak was so small is posed no threat to the crew or the six-month mission.<\/p>\n<p>Once at the station, Moghbeli and her crewmates will be welcomed aboard by commander Sergei Prokopyev, Dmitri Petelin and NASA astronaut Frank Rubio, who launched to the lab nearly a full year ago aboard a Soyuz spacecraft. Also on hand: Crew-6 commander Stephen Bowen, pilot Woody Hoburg, United Arab Emirates astronaut Sultan Alneyadi and cosmonaut Andrey Fedyaev.<\/p>\n<p>Moghbeli and company are replacing Bowen and his Crew-6 colleagues. Launched last March 2, Bowen\u2019s crew plans to undock from the station after a five-day handover, splashing down off the coast of Florida the next day to wrap up a six-month mission.<\/p>\n<p>Hoburg had some advice for the Crew-7 replacements.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThey\u2019ll be very focused on their launch, their rendezvous, their docking,\u201d he said from orbit Wednesday. \u201cAnd then once they get here, the timescales change completely. We all feel like we want to go 100 miles an hour and put our training to use and be really effective right away. But it\u2019s a long road ahead.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAnd so they\u2019ll hopefully have a bit of time to just relax, enjoy themselves and get into the groove of living and working up here aboard the space station.\u201d:<\/p>\n<p>Two weeks after Crew-6 departs, Russia plans to launch the Soyuz MS-24\/70S spacecraft carrying cosmonauts Oleg Kononenko, Nikolai Chub and NASA\u2019s Loral O\u2019Hara to the space station. Liftoff is expected on September 15.<\/p>\n<p>Kononenko\u2019s crew will replace Prokopyev, Petelin and Rubio, who plan to close out a marathon 371-day mission with landing in Kazakhstan on September 27. Launched last September 21, they originally planned to come home in March, but their Soyuz suffered a massive coolant leak in December.<\/p>\n<p>A replacement Soyuz was launched in February, but the crew\u2019s stay aboard the station was extended six months to put the Russian flight sequence back on its normal schedule. As a result, Rubio will set a new U.S. single flight record, eclipsing astronaut Mark Vande Hei\u2019s current 355-day mark on September 11.<\/p>\n<p>The late cosmonaut Valery Polyakov holds the world record for the longest single spaceflight \u2014 437 days \u2014 a mark set aboard the Russian Mir space station in 1994-95. NASA astronaut Scott Kelly was the first American to log nearly a year in space, followed by Vande Hei and now, Rubio.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cFrank thought when he flew to space he would be here for six months,\u201d said Hoburg. \u201cAnd part way through his mission, he found out that it was extended to a year. He\u2019s been amazing to work with. Frank is making a huge sacrifice, being away from his family for so long, and I just want to recognize the service he\u2019s given to us aboard the space station.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Kononenko and Chubb also plan to spend a full year aboard the International Space Station. Next March, another Soyuz will blast off carrying veteran commander Oleg Novitskiy, NASA\u2019s Tracy Caldwell-Dyson and Belarus researcher Marina Vasilevskaya.<\/p>\n<p>Novitskiy, Vasilevskaya and O\u2019Hara will return to Earth about 10 days later. Kononenko, Chubb and Caldwell-Dyson will come down together next September.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A SpaceX Falcon 9 liftoff with an international crew riding aboard a Dragon capsule on Aug. 26, 2023. Image: Michael Cain\/Spaceflight Now. Running a day late, a SpaceX Crew Dragon capsule carrying a NASA commander, a Danish co-pilot, a Japanese astronaut and a Russian cosmonaut rocketed into orbit early Saturday and set off after the [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10332","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10332"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10332"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10332\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10332"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10332"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10332"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}