​A crew of 4 astronauts lifted off this morning from LC-39A at the Kennedy Space Center in the United States aboard the Crew Dragon capsule and is currently in Earth orbit as of tomorrow morning, after 08:00 Romanian time, to dock with the Harmony module of the International space station.

The launch was supposed to take place on Monday, February 27, but was delayed due to a problem with the subsystem responsible for igniting the Falcon 9’s Merlin engines (TEA-TEB): a clogged filter apparently prevented the flow of some of the chemicals needed in the first moments of the engines’ start-up, so the launch adjourned until this morning.

It was the first time that a Falcon 9 rocket launch with a crew on board was delayed due to technical problems, but in the end everything went perfectly: the rocket left the LC-39B launch pad in Florida at 07:00:34 Romanian time and in about 8 minutes it reached orbit.

Originally, SpaceX planned to use a reused primary stage for this mission, but ultimately the decision was made to replace it with a new primary stage (something we’re seeing less and less given that SpaceX rebuilds all launched primary stages). After this launch, the primary stage B1078 was found on the barge Just Read the Instructions located in the Atlantic Ocean, about 550 km off the coast of Florida.

There are 4 astronauts on board the Dragon Endeavor capsule: Americans Steven Bowen (an old astronaut who flew on the shuttle three times in the past) and Warren Hoburg (made his first flight into space), Russian Andriy Fedyaev (also made the first flight). in space) and the second astronaut from the United Arab Emirates, Sultan Al Neyadi.

If Andriy Fedyaev is part of a friendly exchange of seats between NASA and Roscosmos in the Dragon and Soyuz ships, then the presence of Sultan Al Neyadi in the Dragon capsule is the result of cooperation between the United Arab Emirates, NASA and the company Axiom Space. , which acted as an intermediary in this cooperation, which enabled the presence of an Arab astronaut in a long-term mission (6 months) aboard the International Space Station.

After Saturday’s docking, there will be 11 astronauts aboard the International Space Station, but 4 of them, crew-5 members (Americans Nicole Mann and Josh Cassada, Japanese Koichi Wakata and Russian Anna Kikina), are preparing to return to Earth next year. .

Since the Soyuz MC-23 capsule was launched without a crew on February 24 to replace the damaged Soyuz MC-22 capsule after a spectacular loss of coolant on December 15, 2022, the next crewed launch to the International Space Station is scheduled. in September, when Russians Oleg Kononenko, Mykola Chub and American astronaut Loral O’Hara will be launched into space aboard the Soyuz MS-24 capsule.

Follow our Facebook page, HotNews Science, to be able to receive live information and curiosities from the world of science in real time!

Photo source: profimediaimages.ro