Three American and one Russian astronaut arrived today at the International Space Station (ISS), as part of the usual crew rotation at the space laboratory.
He will stay there for about six months, during which time more than 200 scientific experiments will be conducted.
They took off on Sunday evening from the American state of Florida, with the Falcon 9 rocket of the SpaceX company.
The capsule with the astronauts docked at the ISS at 8.50:XNUMX a.m. CET.
It is the eighth regular ISS crew rotation mission that SpaceX has conducted for the US space agency (NASA). Hence the name of their mission - Posada-8.
The American Michael Barratt is the only Posada-8 astronaut who has already been to the ISS. However, it will be the first space travel for two other Americans - Matthew Dominik and Janet Epps, as well as for Russian Alexander Grebionkin.
After the handover period, which will last several days, Crew-7, which consists of four astronauts from the USA, Denmark, Japan and Russia, will return to Earth, in the second SpaceX capsule.
NASA and the Russian space agency Roscosmos, which jointly operate the ISS, have established an astronaut exchange program, with each taking turns transporting a crew member from another country.
That program was maintained despite the war in Ukraine, and the ISS is now one of the rare examples of cooperation between Washington and Moscow.
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