4 crew members are making ready to launch to the International Space Station as a part of NASA’s SpaceX Crew-10 mission to carry out analysis, expertise demonstrations, and upkeep actions aboard the microgravity laboratory.
NASA astronauts Anne McClain, Nichole Ayers, JAXA (Japan Aerospace Exploration Company) astronaut Takuya Onishi, and Roscosmos cosmonaut Kirill Peskov will raise off from Launch Complicated 39A at NASA’s Kennedy Area Heart in Florida.
The flight is the tenth crew rotation mission with SpaceX to the house station, and the eleventh human spaceflight as a part of NASA’s Commercial Crew Program.
As groups progress via Dragon spacecraft milestones for Crew-10, additionally they are making ready a second-flight Falcon 9 booster for the mission. As soon as all rocket and spacecraft system checkouts are full and all elements are licensed for flight, groups will mate Dragon to the Falcon 9 rocket in SpaceX’s hangar on the launch website. The built-in spacecraft and rocket will then be rolled to the pad and raised to vertical for a dry gown rehearsal with the crew and an built-in static hearth check previous to launch.
Chosen by NASA as an astronaut in 2013, this will likely be McClain’s second spaceflight. A colonel within the U.S. Military, she earned her bachelor’s diploma in Mechanical Engineering from the U.S. Navy Academy at West Level, New York, and holds grasp’s levels in Aerospace Engineering, Worldwide Safety, and Strategic Research. The Spokane, Washington, native was an teacher pilot within the OH-58D Kiowa Warrior helicopter and is a graduate of the U.S. Naval Take a look at Pilot Faculty in Patuxent River, Maryland. McClain has greater than 2,300 flight hours in 24 rotary and fixed-wing plane, together with greater than 800 in fight, and was a member of the U.S. Girls’s Nationwide Rugby Group. On her first spaceflight, McClain spent 204 days as a flight engineer throughout Expeditions 58 and 59 and accomplished two spacewalks, totaling 13 hours and eight minutes. Since then, she has served in varied roles, together with department chief and house station assistant to the chief of NASA’s Astronaut Workplace. Comply with @astroannimal on X and @astro_annimal on Instagram.
This mission would be the first spaceflight for Ayers, who was chosen as a NASA astronaut in 2021. Ayers is a significant within the U.S. Air Power and the primary member of NASA’s 2021 astronaut class named to a crew. The Colorado native graduated from the Air Power Academy in Colorado Springs with a bachelor’s diploma in Arithmetic and a minor in Russian, and was a member of the academy’s varsity volleyball staff. She later earned a grasp’s in Computational and Utilized Arithmetic from Rice College in Houston. Ayers served as an teacher pilot and mission commander within the T-38 ADAIR and F-22 Raptor, main multinational and multiservice missions worldwide. She has greater than 1,400 whole flight hours, together with greater than 200 in fight. Comply with @astro_ayers on X and @astro_ayers on Instagram.
With 113 days in house, Crew-10 will mark Onishi’s second journey to the house station. After being chosen as an astronaut by JAXA in 2009, he flew as a flight engineer for Expeditions 48 and 49, changing into the primary Japanese astronaut to robotically seize the Cygnus spacecraft. He additionally constructed a brand new experimental atmosphere aboard Kibo, the station’s Japanese experiment module. After his first spaceflight, Onishi turned licensed as a JAXA flight director, main the staff answerable for working Kibo from JAXA Mission Management in Tsukuba, Japan. He holds a bachelor’s diploma in Aeronautics and Astronautics from the College of Tokyo, and was a pilot for All Nippon Airways, flying greater than 3,700 flight hours within the Boeing 767. Comply with astro_onishi on X.
The Crew-10 mission additionally will likely be Peskov’s first spaceflight. Earlier than his choice as a cosmonaut in 2018, he earned a level in Engineering from the Ulyanovsk Civil Aviation Faculty and was a co-pilot on the Boeing 757 and 767 plane for airways Nordwind and Ikar. Assigned as a check cosmonaut in 2020, he has further expertise in skydiving, zero-gravity coaching, scuba diving, and wilderness survival.
Following liftoff, the Falcon 9 rocket will speed up Dragon to roughly 17,500 mph. As soon as in orbit, the crew and SpaceX mission management in Hawthorne, California, will monitor a collection of maneuvers that may information Dragon to the forward-facing port of the station’s Concord module. The spacecraft is designed to dock autonomously, however the crew can take management and pilot manually, if obligatory.
After docking, Crew-10 will likely be welcomed aboard the station by the seven-member crew of Expedition 72 and conduct a brief handover interval on science and upkeep actions with the departing Crew-9 crew members. Then, NASA astronauts Nick Hague, Suni Williams, Butch Wilmore, and Roscosmos cosmonaut Aleksandr Gorbunov will undock from the house station and return to Earth. Forward of Crew-9 return, mission groups will overview climate situations on the splashdown websites off the coast of Florida previous to departure from station.
Crew-10 will conduct new scientific analysis to arrange for human exploration past low Earth orbit and profit humanity on Earth. The crew is scheduled to conduct materials flammability checks for future spacecraft designs, have interaction with college students by way of ham radio and use its current {hardware} to check a backup lunar navigation answer, and take part in an built-in research to raised perceive physiological and psychological modifications to the human physique to offer priceless insights for future deep house missions.
These are only a few of the greater than 200 scientific experiments and expertise demonstrations happening throughout the mission.
Whereas aboard the orbiting laboratory, Crew-10 will welcome a Soyuz spacecraft with three new crew members, together with NASA astronaut Jonny Kim, and they’ll bid farewell to the Soyuz carrying NASA astronaut Don Pettit. The crew additionally is anticipated to see the arrival of the SpaceX Dragon, Roscosmos Progress, and Northrop Grumman’s Cygnus cargo spacecraft, in addition to the short-duration non-public Axiom Mission 4 crew.
The cadre will fly aboard the SpaceX Dragon spacecraft, named Endurance, which beforehand flew NASA’s SpaceX Crew-3, Crew-5, and Crew-7 missions.
Industrial crew missions allow NASA to maximise use of the house station, the place astronauts have lived and labored constantly for greater than 24 years, testing applied sciences, performing analysis, and growing the talents wanted to function future industrial locations in low Earth orbit, and discover farther from Earth. Analysis performed on the house station advantages folks on Earth and paves the best way for future long-duration missions to the Moon and past via NASA’s Artemis missions.
Be taught extra in regards to the house station, its analysis, and crew, at: https://www.nasa.gov/station
