Russian launches from US for first time in 20 years: Despite concerns over the conflict in Ukraine, a Russian cosmonaut launched from the US on Wednesday for the first time in 20 years, joining NASA and Japanese astronauts in a mission to the International Space Station.
Hurricane Ian, which devastated the state last week, caused their SpaceX journey to delay.
Koichi Wakata, a space travel veteran from the Japan Space Agency, expressed his hope that everyone will benefit from a bit of enlargement of the sky above Florida due to this launch.
The first Native American woman to go into orbit, Marine Col. Nicole Mann, Navy Capt. Josh Cassada, and Russia’s only female cosmonaut, Anna Kikina, will be traveling with him on a five-month trip.
After leaving NASA’s Kennedy Space Center, they expect to reach the space station on Thursday. They won’t return to the planet until March. They are replacing a US-Italian team that came in April.
Kikina replaces NASA astronaut Frank Rubio, who arrived two weeks earlier on a Soyuz rocket from Kazakhstan. He took off alongside two cosmonauts.
To maintain the constant US and Russian presence on the 260-mile-high (420-kilometer-high) outpost. The space agencies decided to exchange seats on their missions during the summer.
Despite growing international hostility over Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in late February, the trade was approved. In the spring, there will be another crew swap.
Before the rocket took off, NASA Administrator Bill Nelson said that safety was the primary motivation for the seat swap since there would still be an American and a Russian on board if an emergency forced one capsule’s crew to return to Earth.
Sergei Krikalev, a Russian space official, told reporters this week that Russia would continue to support the space station until 2024. Later this decade, Russia plans to construct its orbital station.
But “we realize that it’s not going to happen very quickly and so probably we will keep flying,” he added. Until then, Russia will likely continue to fly alongside NASA.
NASA began transporting cosmonauts on its space shuttles with Krikalev in 1994, first to Russia’s Mir space station and later to the nascent space station. But unfortunately, it ended with the Columbia reentry catastrophe in 2003.
However, US astronauts continued to pay tens of millions for each seat to board Russian rockets.
As a result, Kakina is only the seventh Russian woman to leave the Earth in a rocket.
She said that despite going through “many tests and challenges” throughout her ten years of preparation, she shock to chose for the seat exchange. But I did it. I may be fortunate. I’m powerful, she said.
Taking up her mother’s dream catcher, a tiny, traditional webbed hoop said to provide protection. Mann is a member of the Wailacki of the Round Valley Indian Tribes in California.
Native American John Herrington, a retired NASA astronaut from the Chickasaw Nation, traveled to space for the first time in 2002.
Before the trip, Mann remarked, “I am thrilled to represent Native Americans and my ancestry,” adding that every member of her crew had a unique history.
It’s crucial to recognize the value of our differences and the tremendous successes we may achieve when working together.
Mann said all four had put aside their political and religious opinions because the space station “instantly unites us.”
Cassada: We can show society how to work, cohabit, and research as a group.
Since 2020, Elon Musk’s SpaceX has flown eight crews: six for NASA and two for commercial organizations.
After delays in correcting software and other problems that surfaced on test flights, Boeing, NASA’s other hired taxi service, aims to make its first astronaut voyage early next year.