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-10 or SpaceX Crew-10 mission. After almost exactly ten minutes, it successfully separated from the rocket’s last stage and went en route to carry out its mission. This is the 10th crewed mission of the Crew Dragon spacecraft within the normal rotation of the International Space Station crew.
The four new members of the International Space Station crew, who are added to the Expedition 72 crew, are:
Anne Charlotte McClain. Born on June 7, 1979, in Spokane, Washington, USA, she graduated from the United States Military Academy, West Point, where she earned a degree in mechanical engineering in 2002. At the British University of Bath, she earned a master’s degree in aerospace engineering in 2004 and at the British University of Bristol, she earned a master’s degree in international security in 2005. When she lived in England she played rugby in the Women’s Premiership and was part of the American national rugby team. She qualified as an OH-58 Kiowa Warrior helicopter pilot and participated in missions in Iraq. In 2013 she was selected as an astronaut candidate by NASA. She’s at her second space mission and she already served on the International Space Station as part of Expedition 58/59.
Takuya Onishi. Born on December 22, 1975, in Nerima, a district of Tokyo, Japan, he earned a Bachelor’s in Aerospace Engineering from the University of Tokyo. He worked for All Nippon Airways (ANA) for some years and in 2009 was selected by the Japanese space agency JAXA as an astronaut candidate. In 2011 he participated as an aquanaut in the NEEMO 15 mission in the underwater laboratory Aquarius. This is his first mission in space and he already served on the International Space Station as part of Expedition 48/49.
Nichole Ayers née Stilwell. Born on December 13, 1988, she earned a bachelor’s degree in mathematics from the United States Air Force Academy in Colorado and a master’s degree in computational and applied mathematics from Rice University in Houston. She served as a pilot in the U.S. Air Force, including as a flight instructor. She was selected as an astronaut candidate in 2021. This is her first space mission.
Kirill Alexandrovich Peskov. Born on May 1, 1990, in Kyzyl, in the then Tuvan Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic, now part of the Russian Federation, he specialized in Flight Operation of Aircraft at the Ulyanovsk Institute of Civil Aviation, graduating as an engineer and earning the rank of lieutenant in the reserve forces of the Russian Air Force. He was selected as a cosmonaut candidate in 2017. This is his first space mission.
Tomorrow, at about 4.30 UTC, the Crew Dragon Endurance will reach the International Space Station and dock directly with the Harmony module.
