SpaceX sends cosmonaut to journey
Date
10/1/2024 4:38:18 AM
(MENAFN) In a significant achievement for commercial space travel, Russian cosmonaut Aleksandr Gorbunov has begun a five-month mission at the International Space Station (ISS) after arriving aboard SpaceX’s Crew Dragon spacecraft. Gorbunov is the fifth Russian to journey on a SpaceX-operated ferry.
The Crew-9 mission, which marks the ninth operational commercial crew launch for NASA, was initiated with the launch of a Falcon 9 rocket from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida on Saturday. The Crew Dragon spacecraft, carrying both Gorbunov and U.S. astronaut Nick Hague, successfully reached its designated orbit and autonomously docked with the ISS on Sunday afternoon. NASA provided live streaming coverage of the docking event.
Elon Musk, CEO of SpaceX, celebrated the successful docking with a succinct post on X, stating, “Dragon has reached @Space_Station.”
Gorbunov, representing Russia’s state space agency, Roscosmos, is on his inaugural mission and will function as a flight engineer aboard the ISS. He and Hague are set to spend the next five months in the orbiting laboratory, joining an established crew of Roscosmos cosmonauts, including Aleksandr Grebenkin, Aleksey Ovchinin, and Ivan Vagner, alongside NASA astronauts Michael Barratt, Matthew Dominick, Jeanette Epps, Don Pettit, Butch Wilmore, and Suni Williams.
Looking ahead, Gorbunov and Hague are scheduled to return to Earth in February, accompanied by Wilmore and Williams, who have been stationed on the ISS since June. The duo initially arrived for a weeklong test mission aboard Boeing's Starliner, which unfortunately encountered technical difficulties and returned empty in early September.
In the meantime, Crew-8 members Barratt, Dominick, Epps, and Grebenkin are expected to depart the space station aboard the Crew Dragon Endeavour spacecraft in early October, marking another milestone in the ongoing partnership between NASA and SpaceX in advancing human space exploration.
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