New space station crew eager for Wednesday launch

2 hours ago 5

Two Americans, a French astronaut and a Russian cosmonaut said Sunday they are anxious to blast disconnected Wednesday connected a formation to the International Space Station, replacing 4 unit members who chopped their ngo abbreviated and returned to Earth past period due to the fact that of a aesculapian issue.

Crew 12 commandant Jessica Meir, Jack Hathaway, European Space Agency astronaut Sophie Adenot and cosmonaut Andrey Fedyaev are scheduled for motorboat atop a Falcon 9 rocket astatine the Cape Canaveral Space Force Station astatine 6:01 a.m. EST Wednesday. If each goes well, they'll drawback up with the laboratory Thursday, moving successful for docking astatine 10:30 a.m.

The formation had been connected clasp until aboriginal this month, aft NASA's Artemis II satellite ngo launched and returned to Earth. But the moonshot was delayed to March due to the fact that of a hydrogen leak successful its Space Launch System rocket, clearing the mode for NASA to determination up the Falcon 9 abstraction presumption flight.

Meir and her crewmates flew to the Kennedy Space Center from Houston connected Friday. Their Falcon 9 rocket was erected astatine the adjacent Space Force Station aboriginal Saturday, and SpaceX trial fired its archetypal signifier engines earlier dawn Sunday to acceptable the signifier for launch.

"We arrived a mates of days ago, and this is truly starting to consciousness similar we're astir to launch," Meir said during a virtual quality league astatine the Kennedy Space Center, wherever the unit is successful pre-flight aesculapian quarantine. "You know, we've seen the rocket. We've been spending clip retired connected the formation with our families. We've been reasoning astir each the things, past minute, things that we request to instrumentality attraction of. So it's getting very, precise real."

In a post connected the societal media level X, she shared a abbreviated video of herself and her three-year-old girl playing with an air-propelled artifact rocket connected the beach.

"We had immoderate precise invited household clip connected the formation successful the Florida sunshine," she said connected X. "My daughter's rocketry skills are connected point! Let's airy this rocket!"

Since the aboriginal departure of the 4 Crew 11 fliers whom Meir and her unit are replacing, the presumption has been staffed by a reduced unit of three: commandant Sergey Kud-Sverchkov, chap cosmonaut Sergey Mikaev, and NASA astronaut Chris Williams, who were launched to the outpost past November aboard a Russian Soyuz spacecraft.

Meir and institution volition boost the presumption unit backmost to 7 long-duration occupants, giving Williams assistance successful maintaining systems successful the U.S. conception of the lab. They'll besides beryllium capable to resume a afloat slate of experiments and regain the quality for two-person NASA spacewalks, exigency oregon otherwise, which trust connected the buddy strategy for safety.

Crew 11 commandant Zena Cardman, copilot Mike Fincke, Japanese astronaut Kimiya Yui and cosmonaut Oleg Platonov primitively planned to instrumentality to Earth astir Feb. 20, aft a five-day "handover" with their Crew 12 replacements.

But NASA ordered Cardman and institution backmost to Earth connected Jan. 15, aft 1 of the Crew 11 fliers experienced an undisclosed aesculapian issue. Crew 11 came down safely, and each 4 unit members appeared steadfast and successful bully spirits astatine a post-flight quality conference.

Meir said that portion Crew 12 did not get a crew-to-crew in-space handover from Crew 11, they are much than acceptable to determination into the outpost and get to work. Meir and Fedyaev person each logged a long-duration enactment aboard the presumption portion Hathaway, a erstwhile F/A-18E bearer pilot, and Adenot, a French aerial unit chopper trial pilot, are making their archetypal abstraction flight.

"Chris has been up determination since astir the clip of Thanksgiving, truthful helium is precise good settled in. We person talked to him arsenic a crew," Meir said. "We've talked to him individually respective times. He's doing truly well, and has that spot running. It's going to beryllium successful cleanable signifier erstwhile we get up there."

She said her unit had besides met with Crew 11 "and had a small spot of a debrief truthful they could walk on immoderate pertinent things. There are immoderate differences connected the abstraction presumption from the clip that Andrey and I flew before, but overall, arsenic a whole, it hasn't changed that much."

In:

Read Entire Article