KENNEDY SPACE CENTER, UNITED STATES (AFP) – NASA and SpaceX yesterday sent the next crew of four astronauts to the International Space Station.
Dubbed Crew-7, the mission will be commanded by American Jasmin Moghbeli and includes Andreas Mogensen of Denmark, Satoshi Furukawa of Japan and Konstantin Borisov of Russia.
Liftoff on 3:27 am (0727 GMT) from Launch Complex 39A at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida, with a backup opportunity today.
The launch was pushed back to yesterday to give engineers an extra day to review a component of the Crew Dragon capsule’s environmental control and life support system, NASA said in a blog post.
It will be the first space mission for both Moghbeli and Borisov.
“This is something I’ve wanted to do for as long as I can remember,” said Moghbeli, a Naval test pilot, during a media call last month.
“One of the things I’m most excited about is looking back at our beautiful planet,” added the 40-year-old of Iranian heritage.
“Everyone who I’ve talked to who has flown already has said that was a life-changing perspective – and also floating around in space, it seems really fun.”
Crew-7 is set to be the seventh routine mission to the orbital platform for Elon Musk’s SpaceX, with the first coming in 2020.
