Author: James Cawley

NASA and SpaceX are targeting mid-August for the launch of Crew-7, the next rotational mission to the International Space Station aboard a SpaceX Dragon spacecraft and Falcon 9 rocket from Launch Complex 39A at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida.

NASA astronaut Jasmin Moghbeli and ESA (European Space Agency) astronaut Andreas Mogensen will serve as spacecraft commander and pilot, respectively, for the mission. Two mission specialists will be announced later, following review by NASA and its international partners. Moghbeli, Mogensen, and the additional mission specialists will join an expedition crew aboard the space station.

Crew Flight Test Targeting July 21

Launch of NASA’s Boeing Crew Flight Test (CFT) to the International Space Station is targeted for no earlier than Friday, July 21, pending coordination for the U.S. Eastern Range availability. The new target date provides NASA and Boeing the necessary time to complete subsystem verification testing and close out test flight certification products and aligns with the space station manifest and range launch opportunities.

Space Station Cargo, Research Work Ongoing

The Expedition 69 crew members continue unpacking the SpaceX Dragon resupply ship in the midst of human research and pharmaceutical studies aboard the International Space Station. NASA and its commercial crew partners have also announced upcoming missions to the station.

Flight Engineers Frank Rubio of NASA and Sultan Alneyadi of UAE (United Arab Emirates) took turns working inside the SpaceX Dragon cargo craft on Thursday. The duo has been offloading some of the 6,200 pounds new research gear and crew supplies packed inside the Cargo Dragon. The U.S. commercial space freighter will remain docked to the Harmony module’s forward port until mid-April when it will return to Earth filled with completed science experiments and other cargo for retrieval and analysis.

Rubio started his day pedaling on the station’s exercise bike while attached to sensors to measure his aerobic capacity in microgravity. Afterward, he performed research work in the Columbus laboratory module to understand how the different gravity levels of the Moon, Mars, and beyond may affect the biomanufacturing of pharmaceuticals.

Alneyadi’s first task of the day was to install an incubator in the Kibo laboratory module and later activate it in the afternoon. He also collected surface samples throughout the space station for microbial analysis back on Earth.

Station Commander Sergey Prokopyev was joined by Rubio and Roscosmos Flight Engineer Dmitri Petelin during the morning checking their Soyuz launch and entry suits for leaks. Prokopyev and Petelin then tested communications with the ISS Progress 83 cargo craft docked to the Zvezda service module’s rear port. Flight Engineer Andrey Fedyaev worked throughout Thursday on computer maintenance and orbital plumbing tasks.

NASA and ESA (European Space Agency) have selected two astronauts to launch on NASA’s SpaceX Crew-7 mission to the International Space Station.

NASA astronaut Jasmin Moghbeli and ESA astronaut Andreas Mogensen will serve as spacecraft commander and pilot, respectively, for the mission. Two mission specialists will be announced later, following review by NASA and its international partners.

The mission is expected to launch no earlier than 2023 on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from Launch Complex 39A at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida. Moghbeli, Mogensen, and the additional mission specialists will join an expedition crew aboard the space station.

This will be the first spaceflight for Moghbeli, who became a NASA astronaut in 2017. Moghbeli is from Baldwin, New York, and earned a bachelor’s degree in aerospace engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and a master’s degree in aerospace engineering from the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, California. As an AH-1W Super Cobra pilot and Marine Corps test pilot, she has flown more than 150 missions accruing 2,000 hours of flight time in more than 25 different aircraft. She also graduated with honors from the U.S. Naval Test Pilot School in Patuxent River, Maryland. At the time of her selection as an astronaut, Moghbeli was testing H-1 helicopters and serving as the quality assurance and avionics officer for VMX-1. She is also the proud mom of twin girls.

This will be Mogensen’s second trip to the space station as a veteran of the ESA 10-day Iriss mission in 2015, for which he served as a flight engineer. Mogensen was the flight engineer on Soyuz TMA-18M spacecraft during launch and Soyuz TMA-16M during the return flight. Mogensen has logged 9 days, 20 hours, and 9 minutes in space. He was born in Copenhagen, Denmark, and graduated with an international baccalaureate from the Copenhagen International School, a master’s degree in aeronautical engineering from Imperial College London, and a doctorate in aerospace engineering from the University of Texas at Austin. In 2015, Mogensen became the first Danish person to go to space and currently is serving as the European astronaut liaison officer to NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston.

NASA’s Commercial Crew Program works with the U.S. aerospace industry to provide safe, reliable, and cost-effective transportation to and from the International Space Station on American-made rockets and spacecraft launching from American soil.

For more than 21 years, humans have lived and worked continuously aboard the International Space Station, advancing scientific knowledge and demonstrating new technologies, making research breakthroughs not possible on Earth. As a global endeavor, 253 people from 19 countries have visited the unique microgravity laboratory that has hosted more than 3,000 research and educational investigations from researchers in 109 countries and areas.

The station is a critical testbed for NASA to understand and overcome the challenges of long-duration spaceflight and to expand commercial opportunities in low-Earth orbit. As commercial companies focus on providing human space transportation services and developing a robust low-Earth orbit economy, NASA is free to focus on building spacecraft and rockets for deep space missions to the Moon and Mars.

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Find more information on NASA’s Commercial Crew Program at:

https://www.nasa.gov/commercialcrew