Successful maneuver in space – Spacex mission docks at the International Space Station

The Spacex mission has arrived at the International Space Station. The US astronauts Bob Behnken and Douglas Hurley docked on the ISS on Sunday after a good 19 hours. 49-year-old Behnken and 53-year-old Hurley are said to stay on the ISS for several weeks and work there in the laboratory.

xxFor the USA, the launch from Cape Canaveral in the US state of Florida is a milestone in space travel. For the first time in nine years, NASA astronauts took off again from American soil. Since the end of the space shuttle flights in 2011, they had to rely on Russian Soyuz capsules to transport astronauts to the ISS. The private company Spacex, founded by Elon Musk, launched its Crew Dragon space capsule in cooperation with the US space agency Nasa. The rocket’s first attempt to launch last Wednesday was canceled due to bad weather, just 17 minutes before the planned launch.

“It’s incredible the power, the technology,” said US President Donald Trump when the rocket was launched. “It was nice to look at”. He had traveled to Cape Canaveral to watch the start live and was accompanied by Vice President Mike Pence, among others. Trump also sees this space mission as a step towards the goal of flying people to Mars.

The flight into space is also a great success for Musk. The founder of the electric car maker Tesla is also a pioneer in the development of reusable rockets that are supposed to make space flights cheaper and therefore more frequent. It is also the first time that Americans are flying into space with a private company.

The Crew Dragon space capsule had been sent to the ISS on Saturday afternoon (local time) from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida. Just minutes after launch, the Falcon 9 missile detonated the first stage, which flew back to Earth independently and landed safely on a platform in the Atlantic. The capsule separated from the second rocket stage far above earth and began the journey to the ISS.

A competitor is set to bring Americans into orbit next year. Then the aircraft manufacturer Boeing wants to launch its CST-100 Starliner into space. The US space agency NASA has given almost $ 8 billion to both companies to develop competing systems.

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The last time astronauts flew to the ISS was on the Atlantis space shuttle in summer 2011. The US space agency Nasa then mothballed its space shuttle fleet for cost reasons and has since been dependent on Russia for flights to the ISS. At around 80 million euros per flight in a Russian Soyuz capsule, this was not only expensive, but also scratched the ego a lot.

In fact, NASA’s own flights from the USA to the ISS had already been announced for 2017 – due to technical problems, financing difficulties and restructuring after the election of US President Trump, the project was postponed.

It is currently a difficult time for the United States, said Nasa boss Bridenstine. The country is particularly hard hit by the coronavirus pandemic, and mass protests are currently underway following the death of an African American in a brutal police operation in Minneapolis. He hoped, said Bridenstine, that the successful start “gives everyone the opportunity to think about humanity”.

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(SDA)

Published: 30.05.2020, 20:57-