by An international team of four astronauts on board a SpaceX crew Dragon Capsule was planned on Saturday with the Orbising International Space Station (ISS).
“Docking confirmed!”, On the social media, SpaceX posted with a video that shows the spaceship that is in contact with the ISS at 2:27 a.m. Eastern Time (0627 GMT).
The American astronauts Zena Cardman and Mike Fincke, Japan’s Kimiya Yui and Roscosmos Cosmonaut Oleg Platonov join the ISS on a six -month mission.
On Friday morning, they moved away from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida, whose capsule was mounted on a Falcon 9 rocket.
It is the 11th crew rotation mission for the ISS as part of the Commercial Crew program of NASA, which has created the successor to the Space Shuttle -era through partnership with the private industry.
“We have cold drinks, hot food and we are waiting in us – we’ll see you soon,” the ISS -Crew told the newcomers shortly after the contact, the video published.
“Hello Space Station – Crew 11 is there and we are really looking forward to participating,” answered Fincke.
As part of their stay, the crew-11 astronauts simulate the lunar land scenarios, which could occur near the moon-south pole under the artemis program led by the USA.
With the help of hand controllers and several display screens, they test how shifts in gravity affect the ability of the astronauts, space vehicles, including future moonlanders.
The ISS has been inhabited since 2000 as a test bed for research work that supports deeper space research – including any missions on Mars.
Among the colorful freight articles from Crew-11 are Armenian pomegranate seeds, which are compared with a control stack on earth to examine how the microgravity influences harvest growth.
The ISS is to be shut down after 2030, whereby its orbit is gradually reduced until it breaks out in the atmosphere above a remote part of the Pacific Ocean called Point Nemo, a spacecraft cemetery.
IA-DJW/FOX
