4 spacefarers from 4 sovereign nations—a former Marine Corps helicopter pilot, a Danish aerospace engineer, a Japanese surgeon and a Russian engineer—are having fun with their closing day on Mom Earth, earlier than launching early Friday for a six-month keep aboard the Worldwide Area Station (ISS). Crew-7 Commander Jasmin Moghbeli, Pilot Andreas Mogensen and Mission Specialists Satoshi Furukawa and Konstantin Borisov will launch aboard Dragon Endurance at 3:49 a.m. EDT tomorrow, forward of an autonomous docking on the space-facing (or “zenith”) port of the Concord node at about 2:02 a.m. EDT Saturday, bringing the station’s consultant inhabitants to 5 nations.
It can mark solely the fifth event in ISS historical past that as many as 5 sovereign nations have been concurrently represented aboard the sprawling orbital outpost. That determine started with two nations—the 2 main companions, the USA and Russia—on STS-88, the inaugural Area Shuttle meeting mission, again in December 1998.
It then sprang to a few on shuttle Discovery’s STS-96 flight the next Could, whose crew comprised U.S., Russian and Canadian crew members. 4 nations had been aboard the advanced collectively for the primary time in April 2001, when shuttle Endeavour’s STS-100 crew and the station’s incumbent Expedition Two crew included representatives of the USA, Russia, Canada and Italy.
However 5 nations has been a rarer incidence, first seen in Could 2009 throughout Expedition 20, when the long-duration ISS inhabitants first expanded past three crew members. Between Could and July of that 12 months, the station’s crew included People, Russians, a Japanese, a Canadian and a Belgian.
Following the departure of Japan’s Koichi Wakata in July 2009, Sweden’s Christer Fuglesang arrived in August, pushing the determine again as much as 5 nations for a handful of days. A span of greater than a half-decade then ensued earlier than the USA, Russia, Japan, Denmark—on Mogensen’s first flight—and Kazakhstan had been aboard the ISS collectively in September 2015.
Most not too long ago, 5 nations had been briefly aboard the station in early April of final 12 months, with U.S., Russian and German companions as a part of Expedition 66, to be joined for a number of days by Houston, Texas-based AxiomSpace, Inc.’s historic Ax-1 crew, which included amongst its crew a Canadian philanthropist and Israel’s second man in area.
But Crew-7’s composition is uncommon as the primary Business Crew mission during which all 4 of its astronauts and cosmonauts originate from 4 totally different nations, a truth not misplaced on Moghbeli when she arrived at Florida’s Kennedy Area Heart (KSC) final Sunday, telling journalists to notice a unique flag patch on every crew member’s shoulder. Moghbeli and Mogensen had been assigned to command and pilot Crew-7 in March of final 12 months, the previous set to turn out to be solely the second girl to command a crew on her first spaceflight and the latter as a result of make historical past as the primary non-U.S. astronaut to serve in a piloting place on an American spacecraft.
Their crew was accomplished earlier this 12 months, with veteran Japanese astronaut Furukawa confirmed in late May and Russia’s Borisov in mid-June. Though Mogensen spent ten days in orbit in September 2015, and Furukawa logged a six-month increment again in April-September 2011, each Moghbeli and Borisov are making their first flights.
Forty-year-old Moghbeli, a Marine Corps lieutenant-colonel, was born in Dangerous Nauheim, then in West Germany, to an Iranian household, who later settled in the USA. She earned a bachelor’s diploma in aerospace engineering with data know-how from Massachusetts Institute of Expertise (MIT)—taking part in volleyball, lacrosse and basketball throughout her undergraduate years—and entered the Marine Corps in 2005 to coach as an AH-1 Tremendous Cobra assault helicopter pilot.
Moghbeli deployed thrice abroad and accomplished 150 fight missions, then earned a grasp’s diploma in aerospace engineering from the U.S. Naval Postgraduate College and graduated from Naval Check Pilot College as a helicopter check pilot. Chosen by NASA in June 2017, she was recognized—amid nice fanfare—as a member of the “Artemis Workforce” in December 2020, earlier than drawing the Crew-7 command final 12 months.
Mogensen, aged 46, turned Denmark’s first man in area in September 2015, logging 9 days, 20 hours and 14 minutes in orbit. Born in Copenhagen, he acquired a world basccalaureate from Copenhagen Worldwide College, earlier than incomes a grasp’s diploma in aeronautical engineering from Imperial School London in the UK and a doctorate from the College of Texas at Austin.
He served as an engineer on wind-turbine programs in his house nation and later labored in Germany on perspective and orbit management programs for the European Area Company’s (ESA) 2013-launched Swarm mission to discover Earth’s magnetic discipline. Chosen as an ESA astronaut candidate in Could 2009—the primary Dane ever to take action—Mogensen participated in CAVES coaching in Sardinia, served as an aquanaut aboard the Aquarius undersea laboratory, off Key Largo within the Florida Keys, earlier than his first area mission.
Fifty-nine-year-old Furukawa, a Japanese surgeon born in Yokohama, shall be returning to the ISS for the second time, having spent 167 days in area between April and September 2011 on Expeditions 28/29. He earned his medical diploma and a doctorate in medical science, each from the College of Tokyo.
Furukawa labored as a surgeon for a decade, previous to choice by the Nationwide Area Growth Company of Japan (NASDA)—forerunner of as we speak’s Japan Aerospace Exploration Company (JAXA)—in February 1999. His watch for area can be an extended one, nonetheless, and like Mogensen he participated each in ESA’s CAVES program and as an Aquarius aquanaut.
Rounding out Crew-7 is 39-year-old Borisov, born within the Russian metropolis of Smolensk, to the southwest of Moscow. Notably, Smolensk was additionally the birthplace of the primary human in area, Yuri Gagarin.
Borisov earned his undergraduate diploma in economics from the Russian Academy of Economics, then studied on the College of Warwick in the UK for a grasp’s credential in operations analysis and programs evaluation. He later certified in plane building and as an knowledgeable in aviation life-support programs, earlier than being chosen by Roscosmos as a “check cosmonaut” in August 2018.
Moghbeli, Mogensen, Furukawa and Borisov arrived at KSC final Sunday and took part in a “Dry Costume Rehearsal” on Tuesday, donning their personalized SpaceX launch and entry fits and touring out to historic Pad 39A to strap aboard their Dragon Endurance crew ship and full ingress, egress and communications workouts. Their Falcon 9 was later put by means of a Static Fireplace Check of its 9 Merlin 1D+ engines on Tuesday, as is customary earlier than a booster’s maiden outing.
As outlined yesterday by AmericaSpace, Crew-7 has three back-to-back launch alternatives—at 3:49 a.m. EDT Friday, 3:27 a.m. EDT Saturday and three:04 a.m. EDT Sunday—with climate circumstances anticipated to be broadly favorable, round 85 % for the opening try and enhancing to 90 % over the weekend. Potential showers and a danger of violating the Cumulus Cloud Rule are the principle areas of concern.
After launch, Dragon Endurance will spend about 22 hours in transit, earlier than docking at Concord’s zenith port at 2:02 a.m. EDT Saturday. After a pair hours of pressurization and leak checks, hatches into the orbital advanced shall be opened and the brand new arrivals shall be welcomed by Expedition 69 Commander Sergei Prokopyev, his Russian crewmates Dmitri Petelin and Andrei Fedyayev, Sultan Al-Neyadi of the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and U.S. astronauts Frank Rubio, Steve Bowen and Warren “Woody” Hoburg.
The eleven-strong crew will work collectively for a number of days, earlier than Bowen, Hoburg, Al-Neyadi and Fedyayev board Dragon Endeavour and return to Earth, no prior to Friday, 1 September, to wrap up greater than 183 days in orbit. Moghbeli’s crew will then type a part of Expedition 69, as Prokopyev, Petelin and Rubio close to a full 12 months in area, having launched to the ISS for a deliberate six-month increment, again in September 2022.
However a leak of their Soyuz MS-22 spacecraft led to a substitute automobile being flown earlier this 12 months and Prokopyev, Petelin and Rubio’s keep was prolonged to an anticipated 370 days, with touchdown anticipated aboard the “substitute” Soyuz MS-23 on 27 September. Though Russian cosmonauts have beforehand spent greater than a 12 months in orbit, Rubio will eclipse fellow countryman Mark Vande Hei to turn out to be the primary U.S. astronaut to log a steady three hundred and sixty five days on a single mission.
On 15 September, Soyuz MS-24 will rise from Kazakhstan’s Baikonur Cosmodrome, carrying a brand new crew of Russian cosmonauts Oleg Kononenko and Nikolai Chub, along with NASA’s Loral O’Hara. And with the departure of Prokopyev, Petelin and Rubio on the twenty seventh, Expedition 69 will finish and Expedition 70 will start, below the command of Mogensen, the primary Dane ever to steer a station crew.
Their six-month expedition guarantees to be a busy one, with round 300 scheduled experiments—together with 81 “new” investigations—and the seven-strong crew will welcome or bid farewell to a number of crewed and uncrewed guests. In late October, Northrop Grumman Corp.’s NG-19 Cygnus will depart the station after nearly three months, with SpaceX’s CRS-29 Cargo Dragon as a result of arrive early in November for a month-long analysis keep, laden with time-critical experiments.
One other Cygnus, NG-20—launched, for the primary time, atop a SpaceX Falcon 9—is predicted to fly in December, with the AxiomSpace, Inc.-led Ax-3 all-private crew slated to journey a Crew Dragon into orbit as early as January. As much as two periods of Extravehicular Exercise (EVA) are deliberate from the Russian Operational Section (ROS) by Kononenko and Chub to proceed outfitting the Nauka (“Science”) lab.
With Moghbeli’s crew anticipated to stay in orbit by means of February, and O’Hara returning house in late March, present planning envisages Kononenko and Chub staying aboard the ISS for a full 12 months, by means of September 2024. And with Kononenko already a four-flight veteran, with 736 days in area—the world’s sixth most skilled spacefarer—one other 12 months added to his tally will see him eclipse 878-day record-holder Gennadi Padalka to turn out to be the primary human to cross 1,000 cumulative days off the planet.
