After taking off from the Cape Carnival launch site in Florida the day before, a SpaceX spacecraft with four astronauts on board docked at the International Space Station on Thursday.
At 17:01 local time, the “Crow 5” spacecraft carrying Russian cosmonaut Anna Kikina, US astronauts Josh Casada and Nicole Onabu Mann, and Japanese astronaut Koichi Wakata touched down at the space station (21:01 pm Thursday GMT).
The crew’s stay will overlap with that of the Expedition 68 crew for a brief time, bringing the total number of occupants on board the International Space Station to 11.
As part of a mission programme approved last summer by the US space agency NASA and the Russian space agency Roscosmos, Kikina became the first female astronaut to visit the International Space Station.
The deal, achieved in spite of the ongoing conflict in Ukraine, permits mixed US and Russian crews to visit the space station aboard any nation’s spacecraft.
Frank Rubio, a NASA astronaut from the United States, and the Russian cosmonauts Sergei Prokopyev and Dmitriy Petelin arrived to the International Space Station two weeks ago. The Soyuz spacecraft launched from the Russian Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan.
It is noteworthy that the mission of the SpaceX “Crow Dragon” space capsule was scheduled to launch on the third of this month, but was postponed due to Hurricane Ian.
And the private spaceflight company “SpaceX” was founded by businessman Elon Musk, with which NASA entered into an agreement to deliver missions and shipments to the International Space Station. .
On a SpaceX trip, 4 astronauts reach the International Space Station.
About Author
