SpaceX Crew-4 sent NASA mission to the International Space Station (ISS) on Wednesday from the Kennedy Space Center. Here’s everything on the commercial move to space.
SpaceX Crew-4 aboard the ISS
The newest SpaceX mission comes days after a crew landed off the Florida coast following a two-week stay on the ISS. The move is also a huge boost for the commercial sector as a part of NASA‘s new initiative. “During the 16-hour flight to the ISS, the Dragon and the Crew-4 astronauts will orbit the Earth ten times,” tweeted SpaceX. “The launch is targeted for 3:52 a.m. EDT on Wednesday, April 27, from Launch Complex 39A at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida. The Dragon spacecraft, dubbed Freedom by the mission’s crew, is scheduled to dock to the space station at 8:15 p.m. EDT on Wednesday, April 27,” briefed the NASA report.
The team consists of Mark Pathy, a Canadian financier, real estate mogul Larry Connor, and Eytan Stibbe, an Israeli investor. Additionally, Michael Lopez-Alegria is a part of the team. Lopez-Alegria is a Spanish-American astronaut. SpaceX Crew-4 will be conducting scientific experiments. This will include breakthrough research on growing plants in space without soil. Axiom Space paid SpaceX for transporting and NASA for using the ISS. Moreover, as per reports, the three businessmen paid $55 million per head.
More on the NASA’s mission and experiments
After docking with the space station, the crew will be engaging in aeroponic and hydroponic experiments, Called XROOTS. The team is going to use video and still images for evaluating plant growth in space. “Current space-based plant systems are small and use particulate media-based systems to deliver water and nutrients. These do not scale up well in space due to mass, containment, maintenance, and sanitation issues. Hydroponic and aeroponic techniques could enable the production of crops on a larger scale for future space exploration,” stated NASA.
Additionally, they will also be working on the Kibo Robot Programming Challenge. Moreover, this will make it possible for students to create programs for controlling a free-flying robot on the ISS. “The ability to create such models of unknown objects in space using one or two small satellites also has potential applications for a wide range of space missions,” added NASA.