Four astronauts depart on a new six-month mission into space

The four will replace the crew that returned to Earth on Monday, joining the American astronaut and the two Russians who remained aboard the ISS.

The three US NASA astronauts Raja Chari, Kayla Barron and Tom Marshburn, and European Space Agency (ESA) astronaut Matthias Maurer departed Florida’s Kennedy Space Center at 9:03 pm on Wednesday (2:03 am on Thursday in Lisbon).

Arrival at the Crew-3 space station is scheduled for 7:10 pm on Thursday (12:10 am on Friday in Lisbon).

The four were quarantined at Kennedy Space Center, with the departure being postponed several times due to bad weather and a “minor health problem” of a crew member, which NASA did not provide further details about.

This is the third ISS-bound mission operated by the private company SpaceX, owned by tycoon Elon Musk, for NASA.

It is also the third trip to space by American Tom Marshburn, who has traveled aboard a space shuttle in 2009 and a Soyuz rocket in 2012-2013.

The remaining astronauts take the trip for the first time.

The mission will feature several experiments, including the observation of the effects of diet on the immune system of astronauts, with the prolonged stay in space.

Crew-3 crew will also conduct spacewalks to proceed with the installation of new solar panels on the ISS.

Over the next six months, the space station will also host two tourist missions.

The first to arrive are expected to be Japanese passengers aboard a Russian Soyuz spacecraft later in the year. In February 2022, EEI is expected to receive passengers from the Ax-1 mission, organized by Axiom Space, in partnership with SpaceX.

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