While the space exploration of humanity continues rapidly, a new mission has been carried out by SpaceX today. The giant space company, operating under the direction of Elon Musk, sent astronauts to space for NASA in a launch made in the past hours.
SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket flight, which recently signed an agreement with NASA to save the Hubble Space Telescope, is called Crew 5. The mission continued the company’s successful flights by transporting 4 astronauts to the International Space Station.
Crew-5 marks SpaceX’s fifth crewed flight for NASA
The Crew-5 mission was recorded as SpaceX’s fifth crewed flight for NASA. The mission also garnered attention as SpaceX’s eighth manned space mission in just two years.
In the mission carried out in Florida, USA, the crew took off towards the International Space Station at 19.00 in the capsule called Endurance on the Falcon 9 rocket. The Crew 5 mission was also recorded as Endurance’s second space flight. The capsule, which is reusable like the Falcon 9, performed the Crew-3 mission to the station last year.
For the first time since 2002, a cosmonaut has flown a US spacecraft.
There were four astronauts in the vehicle, who would spend six months at the station. Two of them were American NASA astronauts Nicole Mann and Josh Cassada, one was Japanese JAXA (Japanese Space Exploration Agency) astronaut Koichi Wakata, and the last was Russian Roscosmos cosmonaut Anna Kikina. NASA made an agreement with the Russian Space Agency Roscosmos to send Kikina into space. The Crew 5 mission also made Kikina both the first Russian cosmonaut to fly with SpaceX and the first to fly in a US spacecraft since 2002.