A crew of four, including a Russian, aboard the SpaceX Crew Dragon capsule, docked Saturday at the International Space Station (ISS), where they will stay for approximately six months.
“Docking has been confirmed,” SpaceX posted on social media, accompanied by a video showing contact with the ISS at 06:27 GMT (08:27 in Switzerland), far above the southeast Pacific Ocean.
American astronauts Zena Cardman and Mike Fincke, Japanese Kimiya Yui and Roscosmos cosmonaut Oleg Platonov took off Friday morning from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida, their capsule being mounted on a Falcon 9 rocket.
This is the eleventh crew rotation mission to the ISS as part of NASA’s Commercial Crew program, created to succeed the space shuttle era by partnering with private industry.
“We have cold drinks, hot food and we are waiting for you. See you soon,” the ISS crew said to the new arrivals shortly after contact, according to the video posted online. “Hello space station, Crew-11 is here and we are very happy to join you,” replied Mike Fincke.
Flying laboratory
During its six-month mission, Crew-11 will simulate lunar landing scenarios that could occur near the lunar south pole as part of the US-led Artemis program to return to the Moon. They will also test the effects of gravity on astronauts’ ability to pilot spacecraft, including future lunar landers.
Permanently inhabited since 2000, the flying laboratory that is the ISS serves as an essential test bed for research into space exploration, particularly regarding possible missions to Mars.
Crew-11 also has on board fruits, pomegranates from Armenia, which will be compared to a control batch remaining on Earth in order to study the influence of microgravity on crop growth.
A model of international cooperation bringing together Europe, Japan, the United States and Russia, the ISS began to be assembled in 1998. Its retirement was scheduled for 2024, but NASA estimated that it could operate until 2030.
