Miami (EFE).- The four crew members of the NASA Crew-6 mission arrive at the Kennedy Space Center, in Florida (USA), to prepare for takeoff next Sunday towards the International Space Station (ISS). .
NASA astronauts Stephen Bowen and Warren Hoburg, as well as Sultan Alneyadi, from the United Arab Emirates space agency, and Russian Andrey Fedyaev set foot on Cape Canaveral at 12:35 p.m. local time (17:35 GMT), coming from the Space Center. Johnson in Houston, Texas.
With the arrival of the crew, the final preparations for the mission begin, which will take off at 2:07 a.m. (7:07 GMT) on Sunday aboard a Dragon capsule and powered by a Falcon 9 rocket, both from the private firm founded by tycoon Elon Musk.
“We have completed our training and we are ready,” Bowen, the mission commander, told reporters after his arrival.
The first in the United Arab Emirates
Fedyaev, with the help of a translator, stressed that after “months of training” he is ready to carry out his first mission in space, as will also be the case for Hoburg and Alneyadi, the latter the first from the United Arab Emirates (UAE) to take a space trip aboard a privately made ship.
UAE member Mohammed Bin Rashid Space Center promised to share dates and other typical dishes, as well as some Jujitsu sessions, for which he has been wearing a kimono, he revealed today.
Hoburg said that in his case he will eat more fish than usual for a test in “microgravity”, which is part of the more than 200 scientific experiments and technological demonstrations that the crew will carry out during their stay on the ISS.
NASA’s Crew-6 mission
The list of tests that they will carry out in the next six months wants to pave the way “for human exploration beyond low Earth orbit and benefit life on Earth,” according to NASA, which plans to send a manned mission to the Earth in 2024. Luna through the Artemis program.
“The experiments will include studies of how particular materials burn in ‘microgravity’, tissue chip research on the functions of the heart, brain and cartilage, and research that will collect microbial samples from outside the space station,” the statement said. US space agency on a page dedicated to Crew-6.
The sixth crew rotation that NASA makes with SpaceX will travel aboard Dragon Endeavour, which with this mission makes its fourth space flight, and once in the ISS orbit the capsule will make a series of autonomous maneuvers to dock with the module Harmony of the station.
The four members of Crew-6 will be received by the Expedition 68 crew aboard the orbital laboratory and a few days later the members of the Crew-5 mission will begin their return trip to Earth, off the coast of Florida.
