The Dragon Endurance spacecraft, carrying a Native American female astronaut and the first Russian astronaut, successfully docked with the ISS early this morning.
The Dragon Endurance docking with the ISS. (Video: Space)
The Crew-5 mission launched on October 5 from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida, with the Dragon spacecraft entering Earth orbit atop a Falcon 9 rocket. Named Endurance, the spacecraft caught up with the International Space Station (ISS) on October 6 after a 29-hour chase. The Endurance docked at the forward port of the Harmony module of the station at 4:01 AM on October 7 (Hanoi time). The docking operation was completed in about 10 minutes.
The hatch between the Endurance spacecraft and the ISS opened around 5:45 AM the same day. Astronauts Nicole Mann and Josh Cassada from NASA, Koichi Wakata from Japan, and Russian cosmonaut Anna Kikina floated into the ISS 10 minutes later. They will live on the ISS for five months. Mann is the first Native American woman to fly in space, while Kikina is the first astronaut to fly on SpaceX’s Dragon. This marks the first flight to the ISS for both Mann and Kikina, similar to Cassada. For Wakata, this is his fifth flight.
The hatch between the Endurance spacecraft and the ISS opened around 5:45 AM the same day.
The Dragon Endurance from SpaceX previously carried the Crew-3 team to the ISS and returned to Earth. SpaceX operates four Crew Dragon spacecraft. The spacecraft are refurbished and inspected before each flight. Endurance launched with a mix of old and new components, including a new heat shield, parachutes, and cone. SpaceX is also known for its reusable rockets, but Crew-5 launched with a completely new first-stage Falcon 9 rocket. This booster has a bright white color, contrasting with the soot-covered boosters from multiple flights.
The Crew-5 astronauts will join seven colleagues already on the ISS, four of whom are members of SpaceX’s Crew-4 mission. They are expected to return to Earth within the next week, according to Sarah Walker, the Dragon mission manager at SpaceX. The exact landing time for the Crew-4 team off the coast of Florida will depend on weather conditions.
