Astronauts

The Crew Dragon Endurance spacecraft blasting off atop a Falcon 9 rocket (Photo NASA/Joel Kowsky)

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A few hours ago, SpaceX’s Crew Dragon Endurance spacecraft blasted off atop a Falcon 9 rocket from the Kennedy Space Center in its Crew-3 or SpaceX Crew-3 mission. After about eleven minutes, it successfully separated from the rocket’s last stage and went en route to carry out its mission. This is the third crewed mission of the Crew Dragon spacecraft within the normal rotation of the International Space Station crew. This is also the first mission for the Endurance and is the first to transport rookie astronauts.

The Crew Dragon Endeavour spacecraft departin hte International Space Station (Photo NASA)

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A few hours ago, SpaceX’s Crew Dragon Endeavour spacecraft ended its Crew-2, or SpaceX Crew-2, mission on behalf of NASA by splashing down without problems. Onboard were astronauts Thomas Pesquet, Megan McArthur, Shane Kimbrough, and Akihiko Hoshide, who reached the International Space Station on April 24, were part of the Expeditions 65 and 66. They finished SpaceX’s second regular crewed mission in the Atlantic Ocean off the coast of Pensacola, Florida. The Crew Dragon left the International Space Station about 8.5 hours earlier. Shortly after splashing down, the SpaceX ship called “Go Navigator” went to retrieve the Crew Dragon and its crew to transport them to the coast.

The Soyuz MS-18 spacecraft landing (Image NASA TV)

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A few hours ago, cosmonaut Oleg Novitskiy, director Klim Shipenko and actress Yulia Peresild returned to Earth on the Soyuz MS-18 spacecraft, which landed in Kazakhstan. Novitskiy spent just over 6 months on the International Space Station, where he arrived on April 9, 2021, as part of Expedition 64. Shipenko and Peresild arrived on October 5, 2021, to shoot a film on the Station in an agreement with the space agency Roscosmos that changed the normal rotation of the Station crew.

The launch of the Shenzhou 13 mission (Photo courtesy Xinhua)

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A confirmation has arrived that the three Chinese taikonauts of the Shenzhou 13 mission have reached the Chinese space station’s Tianhe core module with an automated docking maneuver. They blasted off about six and a half hours earlier on a Long March-2F rocket from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center. They’re the second crew of the Chinese space station and will remain there for about six months, twice the length of the Shenzhou 12 mission.

The New Shepard rocket blasting off in its NS-18 flight (Image courtesy Blue Origin)

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Yesterday, Blue Origin conducted the second crewed flight of its New Shepard rocket, which included actor William Shatner, famous especially for playing James Kirk in the “Star Trek” saga. The rocket blasted off from the company’s spaceport in Van Horn, Texas, and after about 3 minutes the spacecraft named “RSS First Step” separated from the rocket and reached an altitude of about 107 kilometers, more than the 100 kilometers of the Kármán Line that officially marks the boundary with space. Both the single-stage rocket and the spacecraft are reusable, so both landed at the end of the flight.