In a pre-dawn launch on Saturday, SpaceX sent the United States’s first space flight to the International Space Station where the entire crew was from different countries.
The crew consisted of a NASA astronaut and astronauts from Japan, Russia, and Denmark. The crew is expected to arrive at the space station on Sunday morning to relieve four astronauts who have been there since March.
MUGS OF MAGA: MUG SHOTS OF TRUMP AND CO-DEFENDANTS RELEASED IN GEORGIA RICO CASE
“Space travel is difficult, but you make it look easy,” NASA’s Jasmin Moghbeli, who serves as the mission commander, dispatched to SpaceX mission control from the Crew Dragon capsule after launch. “We’re a united team with a common mission. Go Crew-7. Awesome ride.”
The other crew members are European Space Agency’s Andreas Mogensen, Japan’s Satoshi Furukawa, and Russia’s Konstantin Borisov.
Saturday’s crew will remain on the space station for six months but will overlap with the current crew for five days to transition and take over the operations. During their stay, the new group, called Crew-7, will conduct research investigating the potential risk of bacteria and fungi from human-led space missions. The team will analyze whether the bacteria or fungi can be expelled from the space station’s vents and released into space.
Another crew featuring a NASA astronaut will launch from a station in Kazakhstan in mid-September, along with two Russian cosmonauts.
CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM THE WASHINGTON EXAMINER
“We are extremely proud — and I know I personally am humbled — to be a member of this incredible crew, where if you look at our four patches you’ll see a different nation’s flag on each one,” Moghbeli said during a news conference earlier this week in Florida. “We hope this represents what we can accomplish when we work together in unity and cooperate together. And we think this really is what the International Space Station is all about.”
The launch, which was supposed to take off on Friday, marks the eighth manned SpaceX flight for NASA. Boeing is also expected to send astronauts to the space station but has been delayed due to parachute and other technical issues until at least 2024.
