NASA’s Crew-7 crewed mission successfully lifts off to the International Space Station

Miami (EFE).- The NASA and SpaceX Crew-7 mission successfully took off this Saturday morning from the Kennedy Space Center, in Cape Canaveral (Florida, USA), aboard the Endurance spacecraft and heading to the International Space Station (ISS), where the crew will carry out various experiments and take over from Crew-6.

Liftoff took place, as scheduled, at 3:27 local time today (7:27 GMT) from Launch Complex 39A (LC-39A) at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center.

After separation, the first stage of the Falcon 9 landed at Landing Zone 1 (LZ-1) at the Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, as seen in a live broadcast.

The coupling will not take place until Sunday

As detailed by NASA specialists, the docking of the Endurance spacecraft to the ISS and the departure of the astronauts will not take place until Sunday.

The Crew-7 mission, the seventh manned mission to the ISS by NASA and SpaceX, is led by astronaut Jasmin Moghbeli, selected by NASA in 2017, and Andreas Mogensen, from the European Space Agency (ESA).

In addition, astronauts Satoshi Furukawa, from the Japanese agency JAXA, and Konstantin Borisov, from the Russian Roscosmos, are traveling on the ship.

What will you do during your stay on the ISS?

During their stay in the orbital laboratory, the crew will conduct science and technology demonstrations to prepare for human exploration beyond low-Earth orbit and benefit humanity on Earth, according to SpaceX on its website.

Crew-7 is developed within the framework of NASA’s Commercial Crew Program (CCP), through which the US agency commissions private aerospace firms such as SpaceX to transport crew and cargo to the ISS, in addition to other missions in low Earth orbit.

Return to Earth of the Crew-6 crew

The return to earth of the Crew-6 crew will take place about five days later, depending on weather conditions, so NASA cannot yet set an exact date.

Five days after Crew-7’s arrival, Crew-6 will undock, “enough time for a good handover between the two crews and for the Crew-7 guys to be ready to ‘rock’n’ ‘roll’”, Joel Montalbano, manager of the ISS program at NASA, recently pointed out in a teleconference.

NASA Crew-6 will leave the ISS after completing a six-month stay and conducting important scientific research.

In a connection from the ISS last Tuesday, NASA astronauts Stephen Bowen and Woody Hoburg, United Arab Emirates astronaut Sultan Alneyadi and Roscosmos cosmonaut Andrey Fedyaev answered many of the questions posed by the crews in a relaxed and humorous way. journalists.

The three spacewalks carried out, the maintenance work on the space station, the scientific investigations and the visit to the ISS by the private Axiom mission last May were some of the highlights of the Crew-6 mission, they said. .