A crew of four people, including a Russian, aboard the Dragon Capsule of the Spacex crew, tied on Saturday at the International Space Station (ISS), where they will stay for about six months.
“The mooring was confirmed,” Spacex published on social networks, accompanied by a video that shows contact with the ISS at 06:27 GMT, well above the southeast of the Pacific Ocean.
The eleventh mission to ISS
American astronauts Zena Cardman and Mike Fincke, the Japanese Kimiya Yui and the Roscosmos Cosmonaut Oleg Platonov took off Friday morning from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida, her capsule was mounted in a Falcon 9 rocket.
This is the eleventh mission of rotation of the crew to the ISS within the framework of the NASA crew commercial program, created to succeed in the era of the space ferry when associated with the private industry.
“We have cold drinks, hot food and we are waiting for you. See you soon,” said the ISS crew newly arrived shortly after contact, depending on the video online. “Hello to the space station, CREW-11 is here and we are very happy to join you,” Mike Fincke replied.
A 6 -month mission
During its six-month mission, the-11 crew will simulate scenarios of everything that could occur near the South Lunar Pole in the framework of the Artemis program directed by the United States to return to the Moon.
They will also prove the effects of gravity on the ability of astronauts for pilot spacecraft, including the future Landing Lunar. In constantly inhabited since 2000, the flight laboratory that is the ISS serves as an essential test bench for research on space exploration, particularly with respect to any mission to Mars.
The crew-11 is also maintained at the edge of the fruit, the grenades of Armenia, which will be compared with a control lot that remained on earth to study the influence of microgravity on crop growth.
The international cooperation model that brings together Europe, Japan, the United States and Russia, the ISS began to meet in 1998. Its retirement was scheduled for 2024, but NASA estimated that it could operate until 2030.
Source: BFM TV
