The best pictures of the successful launch of SpaceX Falcon 9 to the International Space Station

File photo of the Falcon 9 missile. EFE / EPA / CRISTOBAL HERRERA-ULASHKEVICH

NASA and SpaceX’s third manned commercial to the International Space Station (ISS) It successfully took off this Wednesday from Cape Canaveral (Florida) with four astronauts, After being postponed several times especially due to weather issues.

Approximately 22 hours after launch, if all goes as planned, the astronauts will arrive at the International Space StationWhere they will stay for six months.

The team consists of American astronauts from NASA Raja Chari, Tom Marshburn and Kayla Baron and German Matthias Maurer from the European Space Agency (ESA, in English)

Since last October 31, when liftoff was expected, the four astronauts have seen the mission postponed several times due to weather conditions and a minor medical problem that affected one of the astronauts.

NASA Administrator Bill Nelson attended the launch event Wednesday night

The so-called SpaceX Crew-3 was launched at 21:03 ET Wednesday (2.03 GMT Thursday), from the Kennedy Space Center, on the east coast of Florida.

2 minutes and 40 seconds after take-off, The capsule where the astronauts travel and the booster rocket separation In the first stage as planned.

The Dragon capsule continued its flight, while the Falcon 9 rocket independently returned to an unmanned platform and parked in the Atlantic Ocean.

SpaceX Crew-3 members will relieve the SpaceX Crew-2 crew, Americans Shane Kimbrough and Megan McArthur, Japan’s Akihiko Hoshide and France’s Thomas Pesquet, who successfully returned on Monday.

The mission is called Crew-3 because it is the third that SpaceX has carried out on behalf of NASA. however, This is the fifth time Elon Musk’s company has launched humans into orbit.

Prior to Crew-1 and Crew-2, a test mission (Demo-2) sent two astronauts to the International Space Station. And in September, SpaceX also launched four tourists for three days in space, regardless of NASA.

The four will consume a wide variety of dried fruits and vegetables (pumpkin, turnip…) as well as barramundi, which is a fish

For American Tom Marshburn, this will be his third time in space. It actually flew on a space shuttle in 2009 and then a Russian Soyuz rocket in 2012-2013. The other three astronauts will make the first flight

SpaceX’s Crew-3 mission with four astronauts blasted off to the International Space Station

The mission was scheduled to leave at the end of October, but it will take off It has been postponed several times, mainly due to weather conditions Then due to a “minor health issue” of one of the astronauts, NASA did not provide more details about it.

space agency I decided to bring the Crew-2 back to Earth before Crew-3 launch. The inter-crew transfer period, which usually occurs in zero gravity, cannot be carried out for a few days.

German astronaut Matthias Maurer spoke to his family through a tablet before boarding the rocket

The astronauts will spend six months in the orbital location and conduct research to aid future deep space exploration and benefit life on Earth.

The astronauts will conduct spacewalks, in particular to continue the installation of new solar panels on the International Space Station

The launch was followed by millions of people around the world

The crew is expected to host two tourism missions: one, at the end of the year, a Japanese transported by a Soyuz spacecraft, and the other, in February 2022, a passenger of the Ax-1 mission, organized jointly by Axiom Space and SpaceX.

(with information from the EFE and AFP)

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