SpaceX successfully delivered a fresh crew of four astronauts to the International Space Station (ISS) on Saturday, completing the journey from Nasa’s Kennedy Space Center in a record time of just 15 hours, reports AP. “Docking confirmed!” SpaceX announced on social media, sharing a video of the spacecraft making contact with the ISS at 2.27 am Eastern Time (11.57 am IST) on Saturday, high above the southeast Pacific Ocean.The arriving crew includes Nasa astronauts Zena Cardman and Mike Fincke, Japan’s Kimiya Yui, and Russia’s Oleg Platonov. They are scheduled to spend at least six months aboard the orbiting lab, replacing the current occupants who have been there since March.SpaceX is set to bring back that outgoing crew as early as Wednesday. The incoming crew were all initially assigned to different missions. Cardman was pulled from a SpaceX flight last year to make room for NASA’s Boeing Starliner test pilots, Butch Wilmore and Sunita Williams, whose one-week mission stretched to over nine months.Fincke and Yui were preparing for a future Starliner mission, but with the spacecraft grounded until at least 2026 due to thruster and other system problems, they were reassigned to SpaceX.Platonov was previously removed from the Russian Soyuz launch schedule because of an undisclosed illness. “I have no emotion but joy right now. That was absolutely transcendent. Ride of a lifetime,” said Cardman, the flight commander, after reaching orbit, reports AP. “Every astronaut wants to be in space. None of us want to stay on the ground, but it’s not about me,” Cardman said before her flight.To reduce costs, NASA is weighing the option of sending smaller crews, three astronauts instead of the usual four, on future SpaceX missions. Regarding Starliner, Nasa is now considering a cargo-only flight for its next launch before resuming crewed missions. “What we learn on these missions is what’s going to get us to the moon and then from the moon to Mars, which is I think the direction that NASA has to be,” said Sean Duffy, Nasa’s new acting administrator and the US secretary of transportation.During their mission, the Crew-11 astronauts will conduct simulations of moon-landing scenarios, specifically those that might occur near the lunar south pole as part of the Artemis program spearheaded by the US, reports AFP. The arrival of the incoming crew puts the population of the space station at 11 for the time being. Although the 15-hour journey was quick by US standards, Russia still holds the record for the fastest trip to the ISS, completing in just three hours.
