The four-member crew including two US astronauts, a Russian cosmonaut, and a United Arab Emirates astronaut successfully reached the ISS. The SpaceX Crew Dragon that carried the team docked with the ISS shortly after 6:40 AM Irish time. It took the crew about 25 hours to reach the ISS and it was launched from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida. According to the NASA webcast the coupling took place 420 Km above Earth across the coast of East Africa.
Though in between the SpaceX, ground team had to pause the capsule 20 meters from the ISS for 23 minutes when the crew made sure to check the 12 latching hooks used in the capsule for securing the capsule to the docking port. As soon as the capsule docked at the ISS the standard tests were performed which included checking for leaks and pressurizing the passageway between the capsule and ISS. The crew of four members is planned to perform more than 200 experiments which will pave the way for future plans.
These experiments include combustion in microgravity, human cell growth, etc. The Crew 6 is the sixth long-duration ISS team that SpaceX has successfully flown to ISS. The latest Crew 6 mission was led by Stephen Bowen, one time US Navy submarine officer. The second member Warren Hoburg, 37 is an electrical engineer, and computer science expert. This crew also includes UAE astronaut Sultan Alneyadi, the second person from his country to fly in space and Russian Cosmonaut Andrey Fedyaev who is an engineer and mission specialist in the team.
