Crew-7 mission launch. International Space Station [Zdjęcia, nagrania]

The Crew-7 mission launched from the John F. Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida on Saturday at 3.27 am local time (it was then 9.27 am in Poland). It was launched into space by the SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket, owned by Elon Musk. The launch to the International Space Station (ISS) was initially scheduled for Friday, but NASA decided to postpone it by a day due to additional reviews of the capsule’s life support system data.

There were four astronauts of different nationalities on board the Crew Dragon Endurance transport capsule. Jasmin Moghbeli, an Iranian-American representing NASA, was appointed mission commander. The pilot of the vehicle was Danish Andreas Mogensen from the European Space Agency. They are accompanied by Japanese Satoshi Furukawa from the Japanese space agency JAXA and Russian Konstantin Borisov from Roscosmos.

– SpaceX, thanks for the ride. It was amazing,” Moghbeli told SpaceX Mission Control. “We may have four crew members on board from four different countries, Denmark, Japan, Russia and the United States, but we are a united team with a common mission.”

NASA emphasizes that the completely different life experiences of Crew-7 crew members deserve attention. Moghbeli’s parents fled Iran during the country’s Islamic revolution in 1979. The astronaut previously served in the US Marine Corps and fought in Afghanistan, where she piloted attack helicopters. Mogensen worked on oil rigs off the coast of West Africa, Furukawa was a surgeon for 10 years, and Borisov runs a diving school and is a referee in the sport.

Crew-7 is SpaceX’s seventh crewed mission to rotate personnel to the ISS. It is due to arrive at the International Space Station on Sunday, and is intended to rotate four participants from a previous such venture who have been on the ISS since March.