NASA to send a new crew to the ISS

SpaceX plans to launch another long-duration crew to the International Space Station (ISS): Two NASA crew members will be joined on the flight by an astronaut from the United Arab Emirates and a Russian cosmonaut.

A SpaceX launch vehicle, consisting of a Falcon 9 rocket with a Crew Dragon capsule called Endeavour, is scheduled to lift off from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Fla.

The four-member crew is scheduled to reach the ISS in about 25 hours, Tuesday morning, to begin a six-month mission in microgravity aboard an orbiting laboratory about 250 miles above Earth.

The mission, dubbed Crew 6, will be the sixth extended stay by a NASA crew on the ISS since SpaceX began sending American astronauts into orbit in May 2020.

The commander of this ISS crew is Steven Bowen, 59, a former U.S. Navy submarine officer who has spent more than 40 days in orbit with three shuttle flights and seven spacewalks.

The crew of Crew 6 will be welcomed aboard the space station by seven current ISS residents – three NASA crew members from the United States, including Commander Nicole Aunapa Mann, the first Native American woman to fly into space, as well as three Russians and a Japanese astronaut.

The ISS, the largest man-made object in space, has been in continuous operation since November 2000, operated by a U.S.-Russian consortium that also includes Canada, Japan and 11 European countries.

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