Enlarge image
Crew 4: Jessica Watson, Bob Hines, Kjell Lindgren and Samantha Cristoforetti (from left) at Kennedy Space Center, one week before launch
Photo: SpaceX/UPI Photo/IMAGO
After more than half a year, the space mission of the German astronaut Matthias Maurer is coming to an end: The next crew to replace him and his team left the Kennedy Space Center in the US on Wednesday at 09:52 a.m. CEST (03:52 a.m. local time). State of Florida launched to the ISS space station.
The Crew 4 around the Italian astronaut Samantha Cristoforetti left the earth in a Dragon capsule of the private US space company SpaceX.
The astronauts are to dock at the ISS on Thursday night, and the hatch to the space station is expected to open two hours later.
After that, Crew 3 and Crew 4 can spend several days together: According to the US space agency Nasa, the handover in the ISS should last around five days before Maurer and his team can undock in their capsule and travel back to Earth.
Maurer started in November 2021 as an astronaut for the European Space Agency Esa for six months to the ISS.
In space, the 52-year-old was responsible for material science and medical research, among other things.
Most recently, he completed a strenuous field mission in space that lasted more than six hours.
The name Crew 4 refers to the fourth time NASA is sending an ISS crew to the International Space Station on a private company SpaceX rocket.
The company, founded by Tesla CEO Elon Musk, began flights in 2020 with the reusable Falcon 9 rocket, from which the Dragon capsule is detaching.
Since then, SpaceX has sent people into space from Florida on a total of six flights.
Previously, the US had relied on the Russian Soyuz capsules for manned missions since the end of space shuttle flights in 2011.
With capacity on SpaceX's Falcon 9 rocket fully booked, NASA's latest ISS returnee, Mark Vande Hei, flew on the Soyuz as scheduled in March, despite tensions over the Ukraine war.
Two firsts
The head of Crew 4 is Nasa astronaut Kjell Lindgren (49), a certified emergency physician and aerospace medic.
It is his second flight to the ISS, where he spent 141 days in orbit around 420 kilometers above the earth in 2015.
During this mission, Lindgren completed two spacewalks and participated in more than 100 scientific experiments, including the "Veggie" salad experiment, in which a US astronaut ate farmed food for the first time in space.
The US fighter pilot and flight instructor Bob Hines (47), who has more than 3,500 flight hours in 50 different aircraft and 76 combat missions behind him, is scheduled to pilot the mission.
It is his first assignment as an astronaut.
Jessica Watkins (33) is also making her debut in space travel.
Watkins is a geologist who earned his PhD on the processes of large landslides on Mars and Earth and was part of the research team for NASA's Curiosity Mars rover.
Watkins becomes the first African American woman on a long-term mission aboard the International Space Station.
Astronaut Samantha Cristoforetti (45) from the European space agency Esa completes Crew 4. It is the second ISS mission for the Italian Air Force pilot.
It was actually planned that she would be the first European to take command of the ISS during her six-month stay.
Because of changes to the schedule by the Americans, nothing will come of it, Cristoforetti explained in an interview with SPIEGEL.
Cristoforetti and Watkins had already participated together as aquanauts in NASA's Extreme Environment Mission Operations (NEEMO) in the underwater settlement of Aquarius in 2019.
Space tourists make room
On board, Crew 4 will join the seven crew members who are already on the ISS: the four-strong predecessor Crew 3 mission - three Americans and German Esa astronaut Matthias Maurer, who are due to return to Earth in early May - and three Russian cosmonauts.
The crew launched less than two days after a four-man team organized by private company Axiom Space returned.
The two-week mission, which used another SpaceX capsule for transport, was the first purely privately funded one on the ISS.
Recently, space tourism trips have increased.
Last July, two commercial operators launched back-to-back flights to suborbital altitudes.
Both times, the company's founders, billionaires Jeff Bezos and Richard Branson, were on board.
ak/AFP/Reuters