On April 22, 2021, the Space-X Crew-2 mission was launched from the state of Florida in the United States, bound for the International Space Station; the Crew-2 mission is part of NASA’s (National Aeronautics and Space Administration) commercial crew program, which is being developed jointly with the renowned aerospace companies Boeing and SpaceX , the latter owned by billionaire Elon Musk.
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Crew
Space Crew-2 comprises a crew of four astronauts. NASA will have R. Shane Kimborough as mission commander, who made his first flight into space in 2008 and performed two spacewalks. Also, from NASA, will be K. Megan McArthur as Pilot and the only woman astronaut. She was one of the responsible for the renovation of the Hubble Space Telescope in 2009.
JAXA (Japan Space Exploration Agency)also has its representative in the person of Akihiko Hoshide; who traveled in 2008 for the first time to the International Space Station (ISS), and this time, will remain in Earth orbit on the ISS for six months; Hoshide goes to the crew as Mission Specialist 1, while the Manager and Mission Specialist 2 will be the fourth and last crew member, the Frenchman Thomas Pesquet representative of ESA (Europe Space Agency); who will also be in the ISS for six months; the first time he was in the ISS he did it from November 2016 to June 2017.
Crew Dragon
NASA certified Crew Dragon, the second version of the SpaceX Dragon spacecraft, in October 2020, as the first commercial system capable of transporting astronauts to the ISS, after the successful completion of its first manned launch on May 30, 2020. The main application of this spacecraft is the transport of cargo and crew to the International Space Station (ISS) and low-Earth.
Launches
This is the third flight of Crew Dragon and its second of six manned launches that NASA has acquired through a contract under the Commercial Crew Program. The first launch took place in March 2019 and comprised an unmanned test launch. They successfully achieved their aim as it successfully docked to the ISS and returned after 5 days.
The second launch took place on May 2020; it comprised its first manned test, allowing its crew members to support ISS operations, including four spacewalks; and in this, its third launch and second with a crew will aim to carry its four astronauts to the ISS to fulfill the Crew-2 mission that will last six months.
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