Some trek the sand in exploration while others streak the sky. At 12:34 a.m. EDT on March 2, onlookers gazed in awe as Falcon 9 illuminated the starry morning. Crew-6 astronauts Stephen Bowen (commander), Warren Hoburg (pilot), Sultan Alneyadi (mission specialist), and Russian Cosmonaut Andrey Fedyaev (mission specialist) began their travels from Kennedy Space Center launch complex 39A to the ISS. This was the first launch for booster 1078 and the 4th flight for the crew capsule Endeavour.
On March 3, a little over 24 hours from departing Florida, the capsule carrying Crew-6 docked the forward port of the ISS’s Harmony Module. They were greeted by the members of Crew-5 astronauts Frank Rubio, Nicole Mann, Josh Cassada and Koichi Wakata in addition to cosmonauts Anna Kikina, Dmitri Peterlin and Sergey Prokopyev. This brought the total occupancy aboard the ISS to 11 briefly until Crew-5 returned to Earth.
The Crew-6 team will enjoy an approximate six-month stay in orbit, where they will conduct more than 200 scientific experiments. An example of these includes research on tip tissues and how it impacts human health in microgravity, combustion research and studies into how materials burn in microgravity, and sample collection of external ISS microorganisms collected from support system vents during spacewalks.
