In a joint NASA SpaceX manned mission, four astronauts Stephen Bowen, Warren Houberg, Sultan Al Neyadi and Andrey Fedyaev departed earth on top of Falcon 9 SpaceX rocket from Kennedy Space Center in florida on Thursday, Mar 02, 2023 at 12:34 AM EST. This was the sixth crewed mission of NASA and SpaceX in collaboration of each other, formally called Crew-6 Mission.
SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket gone through all the initial stages of the mission nominally without any issues. Mission was streamed live by both the SpaceX and NASA, on SpaceX youtube Channel, NASA TV and official Website of NASA.
The SpaceX Dragon Aircraft gone on to its final approach towards ISS for docking on 12:15 am est, Mar 03, 2023. It was scheduled to dock the ISS at 12:43 am. However, docking actually took place on 01:40 am. The delay was caused by faulty docking hook sensor of Dragon Spacecraft. After verification of all docking hooks proper configuration, a software override from SpaceX normalized the hook status and the docking process continued.
The delay in docking overall delayed the hatch opening process. After docking, first the hatch between the ISS and the mating adaptor was opened. It was pressurized and then finally the hatch between the dragon and space station was opened. This finally allowed the astronauts already on ISS to welcome the Crew-6 members aboard on ISS.
Crew-6 Astronauts joined the Expedition 68 crew from Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency which is already on Space Station and the Roscosmos Cosmonauts aboard the space station. With seven people already aboard International Space Station, at the moment space station houses total 11 astronauts from around the world, after Crew-6 members reached the International Space Station (ISS). This number will soon decrease as soon as the astronauts of Crew-5 depart the ISS to come back to earth.
NASA Crew-5 members still have few days left on the ISS. We will keep you updated as the Crew-5 gets ready to depart ISS and head back to home planet. The return dates of Crew-5 mission are still to be decided by the American Space Agency NASA.