The Axiom-3 mission, the primary business all-European mission to the Worldwide Area Station (ISS), has arrived safely at its vacation spot. Following launch from NASA’s Kennedy Area Heart on Thursday, January 18, utilizing a Falcon 9 rocket, a SpaceX Dragon spacecraft arrived on the area station at 7:13 a.m. ET in the present day, Saturday, January 20.
On board the Dragon had been 4 personal astronauts: Commander Michael López-Alegría of the U.S. and Spain, Pilot Walter Villadei of the Italian Air Pressure, and Mission Specialists Alper Gezeravcı of Türkiye and Marcus Wandt of Sweden and the European Area Company. The 4 crew members have now entered the area station, greeted by present ISS Expedition 70 crew members.
The begin of the mission on Thursday marked the primary time a business crew of all European astronauts had launched to the ISS. The European Area Company (ESA) despatched one among its astronauts on a business flight for the primary time beneath an settlement with flight supplier Axiom Area.
The crew of 4 will spend two weeks on the area station, performing microgravity experiments and dealing alongside present ISS crew members from NASA, ESA, Russian area company Roscosmos, and Japanese area company JAXA. There are at the moment seven members of Expedition 70, bringing the entire variety of individuals on board the station to 11.
Based on Axiom Area, the Axiom-3 crew will carry out greater than 30 totally different experiments throughout their time in orbit, with knowledge collected from the crew members additionally getting used to check the consequences of spaceflight on human physiology. The analysis consists of experiments from Italy, Turkey, Sweden, and the European Area Company.
The Axiom-3 astronauts are scheduled to depart from the area station on February 3, touring again to Earth in the identical Dragon spacecraft that introduced them there. The Dragon is slated to splash down off the coast of Florida.
Additionally subsequent month, 4 of the present Expedition 70 crew are scheduled to return to Earth as effectively. Astronauts Jasmin Moghbeli, Andreas Mogensen, Satoshi Furukawa, and Konstantin Borisov of Crew-7 are set to depart from the area station on 13 February. Their replacements, 4 astronauts of Crew-8, will launch for the area station later in February.
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