Thursday (February 2), a Falcon 9 rocket built by the U.S.-based space exploration technology company SpaceX successfully lifted off, carrying with it a crew of five: two NASA astronauts from the United States, one from Russia, and one from the United Arab Emirates.
According to AFP’s webcast coverage, SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket (Falcon 9) lifted off from Florida’s Kennedy Space Center at 5:34 GMT (12:34 p.m. Malaysian time) on February 2. The rocket was carrying the Crew Dragon spacecraft and its six-person mission crew.
It was discovered two minutes before liftoff on February 27 that the filter supplying the fuel to start the rocket’s engine was clogged, temporarily preventing the rocket from taking off.
Tweeted NASA on February 2: “The sky was lit up, and the crew sailed to Earth orbit” following the successful launch of a rocket.
The human-crewed spacecraft “Endeavour” (Endeavour) is expected to dock with the International Space Station (International Space Station) at 06:17 GMT on the 3rd after 24 hours of navigation (1:17 p.m. Malaysia time).
NASA’s Stephen Bowen and Warren Hoburg, Russia’s Andrey Fedyaev, and the second UAE astronaut, Sultan al-Neyadi, will be the four astronauts on this mission. They have committed to a six-month mission aboard the ISS.
The four astronauts on this mission will conduct dozens of experiments, such as measuring how certain substances burn in microgravity and observing the effects of space on the human heart, brain, and cartilage.
About once every six months, NASA contracts SpaceX to ferry astronauts to the International Space Station. As of this launch, six different SpaceX rockets have delivered astronauts to the ISS. The space shuttle Endeavour has already been to space three times.
