SpaceX capsule, carrying four astronauts, docks with the International Space Station New York (CNN Business)A SpaceX Crew Dragon capsule carrying four astronauts approached the International Space Station, which orbits more than 200 miles above Earth, and made a gentle in-orbit meet-up, kicking off the astronauts' six-month stay at the space station.
This mission, called Crew-3, is the fourth mission in a partnership between SpaceX and NASA to make routine trips to the ISS in order to keep the 21-year-old space station adequately staffed. That's something NASA has wanted to have more control over since its Space Shuttle program retired in 2011, leaving Russia as the only country with the ability to provide ISS transportation.
The Crew-3 mission kicked off Wednesday night when the astronauts strapped into their Crew Dragon capsule as it sat atop one of SpaceX's 200-foot-tall Falcon 9 rockets on a launch pad at Kennedy Space Center in Florida. The rocket lifted off just after 9 pm ET, vaulting the capsule into orbit, before the spacecraft began to maneuver through orbit on its own and make its way toward the ISS.
This mission comes as the SpaceX and NASA teams are addressing two issues with the Crew Dragon capsule's design. The first, an issue that caused the on-board toilet to leak, was corrected on the Crew-3 capsule before takeoff, hopefully avoiding another scenario like the one experienced by the Crew-2 astronauts, who traveled on Monday by Crew Dragon capsule from the space station back to Earth.
The Crew-2 astronauts found their leaky toilet had contaminated the walls of their spacecraft, and to avoid further issues, they were forced to rely on "undergarments" during their nine-hour journey home.
The other issue NASA and SpaceX are currently addressing has to do with the Crew Dragon's parachutes. During the Crew-2 splashdown Monday, one of the four parachutes took a bit longer than the others to fully inflate.
Kathy Lueders, NASA's head of human spaceflight, told reporter that it prompted SpaceX and NASA to take another look at Crew-3's parachutes in hopes of avoiding a similar issue when they return from the ISS six months from now.
"The thing that makes me feel a little more confident is...the deceleration of the spacecraft all looked nominal for us, which is good news," Lueders said.
Meet the Crew-3 astronauts
Kayla Barron, who has a a master's degree in nuclear engineering from the University of Cambridge, was selected as a NASA astronaut in 2017 and comes directly from a field of work that involves extreme living conditions and long bouts of isolation: submarines. Barron became one of the first women ever to serve on a Navy submarine back in 2010.
"It wasn't until I had that experience of living and working beneath the surface of the ocean and made the connection to living and working in the vacuum of space and understanding the kind of team it took to do that successfully," Barron told reporters last month. "All those parallels are what gave me the confidence to...apply [for NASA's astronaut corps] in the first place."
Raja Chari also joined NASA's astronaut corps in 2017 as one of its newest inductees, and this journey marks his first flight to space. He has a master's degree in aeronautics and astronautics from MIT and graduated from the US Naval Test Pilot School, which has a long history of providing a pipeline to the astronaut corps.
Chari and Barron have also both been selected for NASA's corps of Artemis astronauts, who could fly on future missions to the Moon. Barron added that taking a trip to the ISS is "the best possible training for us" to prepare for an eventual lunar mission, "in terms of personal development and the opportunity to learn from experienced people."
It's also the first time in space for Germany's Matthias Maurer of the ESA, who'll have the opportunity to conduct a spacewalk and activate a new robotic arm, which was recently transported to the space station aboard a Russian spacecraft.
"This arm will be able to bring science payloads through an Russian airlock from the inside of the station towards the outside, and then we [will be] able to run experiments on the outside without performing a spacewalk," he said.
The mission's pilot, NASA's Tom Marshburn, is the sole veteran astronaut among the crew. He has a background in physics and holds a doctorate of medicine, and he first joined NASA in the early 1990s as a flight surgeon. He joined the official astronaut corps in 2004 and has previously flown on one Space Shuttle mission and one Russian Soyuz mission to the ISS.
When asked what he's most looking forward to, Marshburn told reporters that "certainly one of the pinnacles of your time up on board is having the opportunity to do a spacewalk, but what we're doing day to day in the laboratory is going to be what many of us look forward to the most."
The ISS has for two decades hosted astronauts from all over the world to conduct scientific research. The space station is unlike any laboratory in the world — in the microgravity environment, physical and biological phenomena aren't bogged down by the Earth's pull. So, doing the same experiment on the station that's been done on the ground can give scientists a better fundamental understanding of how something works.
The research the Crew-3 astronauts will oversee includes an attempt to grow a "perfect crystal" to enhance our understanding of biological processes, a test of the impact of diet on astronaut health, and the testing of a smartphone video guidance sensor for guidance, navigation, and control of the Astrobee free-flying robot.
载有四名宇航员的SpaceX太空舱与国际空间站对接
纽约（美国有线电视新闻网）一艘载有四名宇航员的 SpaceX Crew Dragon 太空舱接近了国际空间站，它在地球上空 200 多英里的轨道上进行了一次温和的在轨会面，开始了宇航员在地球上六个月的停留空间站。
这项名为 Crew-3 的任务是 SpaceX 和 NASA 之间合作的第四次任务，目的是定期前往国际空间站，以确保拥有 21 年历史的空间站有足够的人员配备。自其航天飞机计划于 2011 年退役以来，美国宇航局一直希望对这一点进行更多控制，从而使俄罗斯成为唯一有能力提供国际空间站运输的国家。
Crew-3 任务于周三晚上开始，当时宇航员绑在他们的 Crew Dragon 太空舱中，因为它坐在佛罗里达州肯尼迪航天中心发射台上的 SpaceX 200 英尺高的猎鹰 9 号火箭之一。火箭在美国东部时间晚上 9 点刚过发射升空，将太空舱跳入轨道，然后航天器开始自行穿过轨道并前往国际空间站。
这项任务是在 SpaceX 和 NASA 团队正在解决 Crew Dragon 太空舱设计的两个问题之际进行的。第一个是导致机载厕所漏水的问题，在起飞前已在 Crew-3 太空舱上得到纠正，希望能避免像 Crew-2 宇航员所经历的另一种情况，他们周一乘坐 Crew-Dragon 太空舱旅行。空间站返回地球。
Crew-2 宇航员发现他们漏水的厕所已经污染了他们的航天器墙壁，为了避免进一步的问题，他们在回家的 9 小时旅程中被迫依赖“内衣”。
NASA 和 SpaceX 目前正在解决的另一个问题与 Crew Dragon 的降落伞有关。在星期一的 Crew-2 飞溅期间，四个降落伞中的一个比其他降落伞完全充气所需的时间要长一些。
NASA 载人航天负责人 Kathy Lueders 告诉记者，这促使 SpaceX 和 NASA 重新审视 Crew-3 的降落伞，希望在六个月后从国际空间站返回时避免类似问题。
“让我更有信心的事情是……航天器的减速对我们来说都是名义上的，这是个好消息，”卢德斯说。
认识 Crew-3 宇航员
拥有剑桥大学核工程硕士学位的凯拉·巴伦 (Kayla Barron) 于 2017 年被选为 NASA 宇航员，她直接来自一个涉及极端生活条件和长期孤立的工作领域：潜艇。巴伦于 2010 年成为第一批在海军潜艇上服役的女性之一。
“直到我有了在海底生活和工作的经历，并与在太空真空中的生活和工作建立了联系，并了解了成功做到这一点所需的团队，”巴伦告诉记者上个月。 “所有这些相似之处都让我有信心......首先申请[美国宇航局的宇航员队伍]。”
Raja Chari 还于 2017 年加入了 NASA 的宇航员队伍，成为其最新入选者之一，这次旅程标志着他第一次飞向太空。他拥有麻省理工学院航空航天硕士学位，毕业于美国海军试飞员学校，该学校有着悠久的为宇航员提供管道的历史。
Chari 和 Barron 也都被选为 NASA 的 Artemis 宇航员队伍，他们可以在未来的月球任务中飞行。巴伦补充说，在个人发展和向有经验的人学习的机会方面，去国际空间站旅行是“对我们来说最好的培训”，为最终的登月任务做准备。
这也是欧洲航天局的德国人马蒂亚斯·毛雷尔第一次进入太空，他将有机会进行太空行走并激活一个新的机械臂，该机械臂最近被俄罗斯航天器运送到空间站。
“这个手臂将能够将科学有效载荷从空间站内部通过俄罗斯气闸带到外部，然后我们[将]能够在不进行太空行走的情况下在外部进行实验，”他说。
该任务的飞行员，美国宇航局的汤姆马什伯恩，是机组人员中唯一的资深宇航员。他拥有物理学背景并拥有医学博士学位，并于 1990 年代初加入 NASA，担任飞行外科医生。他于 2004 年加入官方宇航员队伍，之前曾执行过一次航天飞机任务和一次俄罗斯联盟号飞往国际空间站的任务。
当被问及他最期待什么时，Marshburn 告诉记者，“当然，你在船上时间的巅峰之一就是有机会进行太空行走，但我们每天在实验室做的事情将会是我们许多人最期待的是什么。”
国际空间站二十年来一直接待来自世界各地的宇航员进行科学研究。 空间站不同于世界上的任何实验室——在微重力环境中，物理和生物现象不会受到地球引力的影响。 因此，在地面站上进行相同的实验可以让科学家更好地了解某些事物的工作原理。
Crew-3 宇航员将监督的研究包括尝试培育“完美晶体”以增强我们对生物过程的理解、测试饮食对宇航员健康的影响，以及测试用于指导的智能手机视频制导传感器， Astrobee 自由飞行机器人的导航和控制。
