SpaceX's Crew-6 mission has met with the International Space Station (ISS).
NASA recently announced that the four crew members of SpaceX's Crew-6 mission have safely arrived at the ISS after its Endeavor Dragon spacecraft docked at the station a day after the mission's launch.
NASA and SpaceX launched the latter's Crew-6 mission on Mar. 2 following its first postponement on Feb. 27 due to a ground-system issue.
SpaceX Crew-6 Mission Arrival details
SpaceX Crew-6 mission astronauts from left to right: Mission Specialist Andrey Fedyaev, Pilot Warren "Woody" Hoburg, Commander Stephen Bowen, and Mission Specialist Sultan Al Neyadi.
NASA mentioned in its announcement that the members of SpaceX's Crew-6 mission had arrived at the ISS on Mar. 3, with SpaceX's Endeavor Dragon spacecraft docking to the complex at 1:40 am EST while the station was 260 statute miles over the Indian Ocean.
Reuters mentioned in its report that the Crew-6 mission took about 25 hours to reach the ISS after launching from NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida.
There was a slight delay during Crew-6's docking as mission teams completed troubleshooting a faulty docking hook sensor on Endeavor. SpaceX ground control teams paused the docking when the Endeavor spacecraft was 65 feet from the ISS for 23 minutes while they verified that the 12 latching hooks used to secure it to the docking port were properly deployed despite a faulty sensor showing a possible malfunction.
Eventually, NASA and SpaceX teams verified that all docking hooks were in the proper configuration, with the latter team developing a software override for the faulty sensor that allowed the docking process to continue.
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The successful docking doesn't mean the four astronauts inside the Endeavor can enter the ISS. They, with the astronauts in the ISS, will have to conduct standard leak checks and pressurization between the spacecraft to prepare for the hatch opening scheduled at 3:18 am EST.
The entire check is expected to take about two hours.
Once aboard, the Crew-6 astronauts, comprised of NASA astronauts Stephen Bowen and Woody Hoburg, United Arab Emirates (UAE) astronaut Sultan Al-Neyadi, and Russian cosmonaut Andrey Fedyaev, will join the Expedition 68 crew of NASA astronauts, increasing the number of people living in the station to 11 until the astronauts of SpaceX's Crew-5 mission departs.
SpaceX's Crew-5 astronauts consists of NASA astronauts Nicole Mann and Josh Cassada, Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) astronaut Koichi Wakata, and Roscosmos cosmonaut Anna Kikina.
SpaceX Crew-6 Mission Details
During their six-month long stay, the Crew-6 astronauts will face a workload of more than 200 experiments and technology demonstrations ranging from stuidies of human cell growth in space to controlling combustible materials in microgravity.
Some of the research the astronauts are conducting may help lay the foundation for future long-duration human expeditions to the Moon and beyond under NASA's Artemis program.
Aside from their usual workload, the astronauts will also be responsible for the maintenance and repairs of the ISS, along with doing preparations for the arrival and departure of other astronauts and cargo payloads.
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