The most recent crew rotation has successfully arrived at the International Space Station aboard a SpaceX spaceship. Among the four new team members are the first Native American woman in space and a Russian cosmonaut.
The Endurance-named Crew Dragon spacecraft docked with the station on Thursday, one day after its launch from Florida. The connection occurred 260 miles above the Atlantic, just west of Africa’s western coast.
It was the first time in 20 years that a Russian flew from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center, the result of a new arrangement achieved amid tensions over the crisis in Ukraine and Russia’s unrestrained threats of nuclear strikes.
Anna Kikina joins two other Russians already stationed at the orbiting outpost. She will reside and work on the Russian side until March, at which point she will return to Earth using the same SpaceX spacecraft.
Two NASA astronauts – flight commander Nicole Aunapu Mann, 45, and pilot Josh Cassada, 49 – and Japanese astronaut Koichi Wakata, 59, a veteran of four previous spaceflights, will also participate in the mission.
Next week, Mann and her crew will replace three Americans and one Italian who will return to Earth in their own SpaceX spaceship after nearly six months in space. Until then, eleven individuals will share the space station.
The Crew Dragon spacecraft named Endurance docked with the International Space Station (ISS) on Thursday, one day after its launch from Florida. The connection took place 260 miles above the Atlantic Ocean, just off the west coast of Africa.
Thursday, flight commander Nicole Aunapu Mann, a member of the Wailacki of the Round Valley Indian Tribes in California, boarded a SpaceX Crew Dragon capsule for the International Space Station.
Thursday, Koichi Wakata of Japan enters the International Space Station by a SpaceX Crew Dragon capsule.
Next week, Mann and her crew will replace three Americans and one Italian who will return to Earth in their own SpaceX spaceship after nearly six months in space. Until then, eleven people will share the space station.
Mann, a member of the Wailacki of the Round Valley Indian Tribes in California and the first woman to command a SpaceX Crew Dragon, commanded the team.
Mann, a combat fighter pilot and colonel in the United States Marine Corps, is among the first batch of 18 astronauts chosen for NASA’s future Artemis missions aimed at returning humans to the moon later this decade.
As the capsule approached the space station, the inhabitants assured the newcomers that their bunks were prepared and the exterior light was on.
Mann responded, “You are the finest.”
Mann radioed shortly after the linkup was accomplished, “We look forward to getting to work.”
Before opening the entry gates, the Endurance crew spent about two hours executing regular procedures, such as leak checks and pressurizing the compartment between the capsule and ISS.
A live NASA camera feed showed the delighted new arrivals floating weightlessly through the cushioned passageway and into the station one by one.
Three Americans and the Italian station commander, Samantha Cristoforetti, as well as two Russians and a fourth NASA astronaut who shared a Soyuz mission to the International Space Station last month, greeted them with embraces and handshakes.
Wednesday at the Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida, NASA’s Crew 5 poses for a photo as they leave their crew quarters to board a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket for launch.
A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket lifts out from Pad-39A on the Crew 5 mission carrying crew members commander Nicole Mann, pilot Josh Cassada, Roscosmos cosmonaut Anna Kikina, and Japanese mission specialist Koichi Wakata.
“Many individuals are working hard to ensure that our shared manned space exploration will continue to exist and grow.” We are live proof of this,’ Kikina stated in Russian words translated into English by an interpreter from mission control during a brief ceremony of welcome.
The Endurance crew was the sixth full-fledged ISS crew to fly aboard a SpaceX capsule since the private rocket company founded by Tesla CEO Elon Musk began delivering U.S. astronauts to space in May 2020.
SpaceX has completed eight crewed orbital missions, including non-NASA flights.
During their 150-day mission, the newcomers will conduct more than 200 experiments, many of which will focus on medical research ranging from 3-D “bio-printing” of human tissue to a study of microorganisms cultured in microgravity.
Since 2000, the ISS, which is the length of a football field, has been constantly occupied by a U.S.-Russian cooperation that includes Canada, Japan, and 11 European nations.
Despite growing tensions between Moscow and Washington, the presence of Kikina, the sole female cosmonaut in active service with the Russian space agency Roscosmos, was a sign of sustained U.S.-Russian cooperation in space.
Thursday marks the entrance of Russian Cosmonaut Anna Kikina to the International Space Station.
It was the first occasion in twenty years that a Russian has hitched a ride from the Kennedy Space Center of NASA.
Despite growing tensions between Moscow and Washington, the presence of Kikina, the sole female cosmonaut in active service with the Russian space agency Roscosmos, was a sign of sustained U.S.-Russian cooperation in space.
Kikina joined SpaceX Crew-5 under a new ride-sharing arrangement struck in July between NASA and Roscosmos allowing the two nations to continue flying to and from the ISS on each other’s spacecraft.
Frank Rubio, a NASA astronaut, arrived two weeks ago. He launched from Kazakhstan aboard a Soyuz rocket, initiating the cashless crew exchange between NASA and the Russian Space Agency.
The agreement stipulates that at all times there will be at least one Russian and one American on the station.
NASA was compelled to spend tens of millions of dollars every time an astronaut flew up on a Soyuz until Elon Musk’s SpaceX began launching astronauts two years ago.
One of the few remaining areas of collaboration between the United States and Russia is the maintenance of the ISS.
During a post-launch briefing, the chief of the human space program at Roscosmos, Sergei Krikalev, praised the event as the beginning of a “new period of our cooperation,” citing the 1975 Apollo-Soyuz mission as a symbol of détente at the height of the Cold War.
Krikalev, a former cosmonaut revered by his American colleagues, has been on a charm offensive since the former head of Roscosmos, Dmitry Rogozin, warned earlier this year to withdraw cooperation and let the ISS crash over US or European land.
Analysts say it would be difficult for Russia to construct its own station over the next few years, and a withdrawal from the ISS would effectively bring Moscow’s once-proud civilian space program to a halt.