The Crew Dragon Freedom capsule has reached the International Space Station (ISS). On board the crew of the Crew-4 mission: Samantha Cristoforetti of the European Space Agency (ESA) and its colleagues from NASA Kjell Lindgrenin command, the pilot Bob Hines and the mission specialist Jessica Watkins.
The mission started yesterday at 9.52 Italian time from the Kennedy Space Center of NASA, Florida, with a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket launched from the historic ramp 39A, the one used for the Apollo missions to the Moon. Fifteen hours and 45 minutes later the Dragon shuttle – renamed Freedom in homage to the capsule that carried the first American, Alan Shepard, into space in 1961 – reached the ISS. The successful docking was greeted with thunderous applause by NASA, ESA and Space X personnel gathered in the Texas center of Houston.
Cristoforetti, the plush monkey appears in orbit: AstroSam has taken it to Space
Shortly after, the hatch separating the Crew Dragon Freedom from the ISS was opened and the crew of Crew-4 boarded. To welcome the new arrivals with hugs and smiles Raya Chali, Thomas Mashbirn e Kayla Barrowall from NASA, Oleg Artemyev, Denis Matveyev e Sergei Korsakovof the Russian space agency Roscosmos, and the German Matthew Maurerof the ESA.
Cristoforetti will spend almost six months on the orbiting laboratory. For the “Expedition 67-68” he will conduct together with the other crew members new scientific research with about 150 experiments in areas such as materials science, health technology and plant science to also study the effects of weightlessness on human tissues and more generally the consequences of staying in space on the human organism.