SpaceX rocket carries multinational crew toward space station

SpaceX rocket carries multinational crew toward space station

(Representative image)



Two U.S. astronauts, a Russian cosmonaut and a United Arab Emirates astronaut were safely on their way to the International Space Station (ISS) on Thursday, as their SpaceX ship neared a planned rendezvous with the orbiting laboratory, NASA said.

The autonomously flying SpaceX Crew Dragon capsule was due to reach the space station and dock to the platform shortly after 1:15 a.m. EST (0515 GMT) on Friday, nearly 25 hours after launching from NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida.

Control over the spacecraft will be handed off from SpaceX mission control near Los Angeles to NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston once the Crew Dragon is ready to dock with the ISS.

The four-man team is expected to spend six months aboard the ISS conducting more than 200 experiments and technology demonstrations, ranging from research on human cell growth in space to controlling combustible materials in microgravity.

Some of the research will help pave the way for future long-duration human expeditions to the Moon and beyond under NASA's Artemis program, its successor to Apollo, the U.S. space agency said.

The mission, designated Crew 6, is the sixth long-duration ISS team SpaceX has flown for NASA since the private rocket