Space
SpaceX ship that will rescue astronauts docks with the ISS
The SpaceX spacecraft docked with the ISS one day after its launch from Cape Canaveral, Florida, United States, atop a Falcon 9 rocket. Astronaut Nick Hague and Russian cosmonaut Alexandre Gorbounov traveled on it.
The administrator of the American space agency, Bill Nelson, considered the launch successful. “We live in an exciting time of exploration and innovation,” he said.
Save the astronauts. Boeing screwed this one up.
I get disappointed when I see news like this, as it hinders the development we are having in this area.
I didn't like at all the way the two astronauts have been treated so far.
By the way, the Mets made the playoffs.
Yeah! Finally! I found out yesterday because of the victory.
They deserved it, they worked hard for it.
It is a long season and they were resilient.
Now it is short season.
So now it will be the best of the best facing each other, right?
I believe that the champion's prize should be a lot of money.
Politics is always involved with government money.
Well... government always gets involved in these things. Now I understand the reason for this delay.
"We know that this launch is unique, with just two passengers," said Jim Free, associate administrator at NASA, last Friday (27) during a press conference, in which he also thanked SpaceX "for its support and flexibility."
Elon Musk's company is responsible for the regular ISS crew rotation mission.
The Crew-9 liftoff was postponed from mid-August to September to give NASA teams more time to make a decision regarding Boeing's first manned Starliner mission. The launch was also postponed for a few days due to Hurricane Helene, which hit Florida.
Hague and Gorbounov will spend around five months on the ISS and, until then, carry out around 200 scientific experiments. When they return to Earth, they will be joined by Wilmore and Williams.
The two NASA astronauts traveled to the space station in early June aboard Boeing's CST-100 Starliner capsule.
The spacecraft developed a helium leak even before launch, a problem that repeated itself again on its journey to the ISS.
The mission, which was then expected to last eight days, was extended due to technical problems in the capsule. The American space agency rescheduled the ship's return three times - originally it would be on June 14th, it was changed to the 18th, then the 22nd and later the 26th - and, finally, there was no set date.
With the extension of the mission, NASA and Boeing officials were reluctant to use the word "trapped" to refer to the two astronauts who traveled in the capsule, which would add another negative point to the history of a project that has accumulated delays due to setbacks. technicians.
In August of this year, NASA announced that Wilmore and Williams would wait for the Crew-9 mission to return to Earth. On that occasion, Bill Nelson mentioned the importance of focusing on safety and recalled the accidents with the Challenger (1986) and Columbia (2003) space shuttles to highlight the change in internal culture that emerged from these tragedies.