After greater than six-and-a-half months aboard the Worldwide Area Station (ISS), Dragon Endurance is safely house, following the 5:47 a.m. EDT Tuesday splashdown of Crew-7’s Jasmin Moghbeli, Andreas Mogensen, Satoshi Furukawa and Konstantin Borisov within the Gulf of Mexico, off the coast of Pensacola, Fla. Theirs was the primary Crew Dragon mission to symbolize 4 nations—Moghbeli of america, Mogensen from Denmark, Furukawa of Japan and Russia’s Borisov—and shutting after 199 days, two hours and 19 minutes, 3,184 orbits of Earth and 84.4 million miles (135.8 million kilometers) traveled, it fell 15 hours in need of Crew-2’s November 2021 report for the longest single voyage by any U.S. crew-carrying spacecraft.
“This worldwide crew confirmed that area unites us all,” mentioned NASA Administrator Invoice Nelson. “It’s clear that we will do extra—we will study extra—once we work collectively. The science experiments performed throughout their time in area will assist put together for NASA’s daring missions on the Moon, Mars and past, all whereas benefiting humanity right here on Earth.”
Throughout their lengthy keep in area, Mogensen of the European Area Company (ESA) grew to become the primary Dane to command the area station, while Furukawa turns into the second Japan Aerospace Exploration Company (JAXA) astronaut after Koichi Wakata to report greater than a cumulative yr off the planet. His three hundred and sixty six days over two long-duration ISS increments places him in 52nd place on the world’s listing of most skilled area vacationers, with Mogensen returning to Earth after 209 days throughout his personal pair of missions and Moghbeli and Borisov wrapping up the rookie flights of their careers.
And to not be outdone, their trusty ship, Endurance, accomplished her third (and longest) trek to the ISS, tallying over 532 days in area when one counts Crew-7 and her two prior station visits in assist of Crew-3 between November 2021 and Could 2022 and extra lately Crew-5 between October 2022 and final March. She now sits forward of her sister, the recently-launched Dragon Endeavour, which as of Tuesday has accrued over 474 days throughout her personal 5 missions and can retake the lead in early Could.
Crew-7 launched at 3:27 a.m. EDT final 26 August, rising atop a SpaceX Falcon 9 booster from historic Pad 39A at Florida’s Kennedy Area Middle (KSC) and lofting Moghbeli, Mogensen—the primary non-U.S. citizen to function pilot of a U.S. crewed automobile—Furukawa and Borisov on their 30-hour voyage to succeed in the ISS. They docked autonomously on the station at 9:16 a.m. EDT on the twenty seventh and after hatch opening at 10:58 a.m. EDT the newcomers folded into the incumbent Expedition 69, commanded by veteran Russian cosmonaut Sergei Prokopyev.
After a week-long operational handover, their Crew-6 predecessors—NASA astronauts Steve Bowen and Warren “Woody” Hoburg, Russian cosmonaut Andrei Fedyayev and Sultan Al-Neyadi of the United Arab Emirates (UAE)—departed in Dragon Endeavour and returned to Earth, wrapping up 185 days in area. And in mid-September, Soyuz MS-24 arrived with Russia’s Oleg Kononenko and Nikolai Chub, plus NASA astronaut Loral O’Hara, to switch the outgoing Prokopyev, Dmitri Petelin and record-setting Frank Rubio, who returned house in late September aboard Soyuz MS-23 after 371 days in orbit.
With a brand new crew in place, Expedition 70 formally commenced final 26 September underneath the command of Mogensen, who grew to become the seventh ESA astronaut and the primary Dane to helm the sprawling orbital advanced. “A dream come true,” Mogensen lately tweeted, “the place I bought to reside and work on the Worldwide Area Station for greater than six months, conducting science from Denmark, Europe and the world in areas like our immune system, water filtration, digital actuality and the way we sleep on the area station.”
However what didn’t come Mogensen’s means, sadly, was the chance to carry out a spacewalk. Authentic plans referred to as for 2 U.S. classes of Extravehicular Exercise (EVA) on 12 and 20 October 2023, the primary by O’Hara and Mogensen to retrieve microbial specimens and change a high-definition exterior digicam and the second by O’Hara and Moghbeli to take away a defective Radio Frequency Group (RFG) electronics field from a communications antenna bracket and change one in all 12 Trundle Bearing Assemblies (TBAs) on the port-side Photo voltaic Alpha Rotary Joint (SARJ).
Sadly, on 9 October flakes of particles have been noticed emanating from one in all two radiators on Russia’s Nauka (“Science”) lab, indicative of a coolant leak. Though the leak ceased inside a few days, NASA elected to postpone each EVAs till no ahead of 19 and 30 October, pending a assessment of information and video related to the incident.
Within the meantime, on 16 October the primary of the 2 spacewalks, by O’Hara and Mogensen, was postponed initially till December and ultimately into 2024, with NASA officers noting that its duties weren’t time-critical. The second spacewalk, by Moghbeli and O’Hara, was later moved to 1 November to allow extra preparation time.
By this stage, Kononenko and Chub carried out a Russian-based EVA on 25 October, throughout which they spent seven hours and 41 minutes outdoors the ISS inspecting and photographing the troubled radiator, deploying a tiny nanosatellite and putting in an artificial radar communications system, one in all whose panels couldn’t be absolutely unfurled. For his or her half, Moghbeli and O’Hara—each making the primary EVAs of their respective careers—logged six hours and 42 minutes within the vacuum of area.
Theirs was solely the fourth all-female spacewalk in historical past, following three prior EVAs by Expedition 61’s Christina Koch and Jessica Meir between October 2019 and January 2020. Throughout their time outdoors, Moghbeli and O’Hara changed the TBA however ran out of time to finish the RFG activity, which has been deferred to Expedition 71.
November noticed the arrival of SpaceX’s CRS-29 Cargo Dragon mission, laden with over 6,500 kilos (2,950 kilograms) of apparatus, payloads and provides, which spent a month docked on the station earlier than returning to Earth on 22 December. And on the finish of January, for the primary time a Falcon 9 launched a Northrop Grumman Corp. Cygnus cargo ship with greater than 8,200 kilos (3,700 kilograms) of analysis protecting disciplines together with robotic surgical procedure, cartilage tissue progress and semiconductors.
Analysis ran the gamut from cardiac exercise and blood strain measurements to plasma physics, from eye well being to observations of accelerated aging-like signs in human arteries and from quantum physics analysis to the statement of thunderstorms and electrical discharges. A pair of Russian Progress cargo freighters arrived in December and February, with two others departing in November and final month.
And in January, Dragon Freedom ferried Ax-3 crewmen Mike Lopez-Alegria, Walter Villadei, Marcus Wandt and Alper Gezeravcı—the primary nationwide area traveler of Türkiye—to the ISS for what turned out to be an nearly three-week mission emphasizing science, know-how and academic outreach. With U.S., Russian, Danish, Japanese, Italian, Swedish and Turkish crewmembers (and Lopez-Alegria of Spanish heritage), the presence of the Ax-3 crew noticed Expedition 70 briefly boosted to eight nationalities.
Final weekend, Dragon Endeavour roared uphill with Crew-7’s replacements, the Crew-8 quartet of NASA astronauts Matt Dominick, Mike Barratt and Jeanette Epps, plus Russian cosmonaut Aleksandr Grebenkin, who will stay aboard the area station till August. Having fallen foul to a number of days of weather-induced delay, the newcomers earned the unenviable moniker of “Crew-L8” and their later-than-intended arrival pushed Crew-7 ever nearer to the nominal 210-day restrict for a Crew Dragon to stay in area.
Final weekend, Mogensen symbolically relinquished command of Expedition 70 to Kononenko, who will stay aboard the ISS via September and can lead the transition into Expedition 71 later this month. Kononenko is one in all solely 4 individuals to have flown as many as 5 occasions to the station and as of Tuesday has logged over 916 cumulative days—about 2.5 years of his life—in orbit, greater than another human.
Following farewell remarks from the outgoing crew on Sunday morning, Crew-7 boarded Dragon Endurance and hatches to the station have been closed for the ultimate time at 9:15 a.m. EDT Monday. Undocking occurred two hours later at 11:20 a.m. EDT, setting Moghbeli, Mogensen, Furukawa and Borisov on track for a 19-hour interval of free flight and a return to the waters off the Florida Coast within the pre-dawn darkness of Tuesday morning.
A 13-minute deorbit burn bought underway at 4:56 a.m. EDT Tuesday and in accordance with NASA the spacecraft was seen within the skies over southwestern Nebraska, central Kansas, northeastern Oklahoma, central Arkansas and Mississippi and Pensacola, Fla., earlier than streaking out throughout the Gulf of Mexico. 4 minutes earlier than splashdown, Endurance’s drogue parachutes have been deployed at an altitude of 18,000 toes (5,500 meters), at which level the spacecraft was nonetheless transferring at a blistering 350 mph (560 km/h).
Splashdown underneath Endurance’s 4 major parachutes occurred at 5:47 a.m. EDT, bringing Moghbeli, Mogensen, Furukawa and Borisov safely house after 6.5 months in orbit. In the meantime, in orbit Expedition 70 continues underneath Kononenko’s command, with a brand new crew—that of Soyuz MS-25, commanded by veteran Russian cosmonaut Oleg Novitsky and together with NASA’s Tracy Dyson and the primary citizen of Belarus to enter area, Marina Vasilevskaya—anticipated to reach on 21 March.
