INSUBCONTINENT EXCLUSIVE:
A SpaceX rocket soared into orbit from Florida on Wednesday carrying the next long-term International Space Station crew, with a Russian
cosmonaut, two Americans and a Japanese astronaut flying together in a demonstration of U.S.-Russian teamwork in space despite Ukraine war
tensions, Reuters reported.A high-ranking official of the Russian space agency Roscosmos said shortly after the launch that the flight
marked &a new phase of our cooperation& with the U.S
space agency NASA.According to the report the SpaceX launch vehicle, consisting of a Falcon 9 rocket topped with a Crew Dragon capsule
dubbed Endurance, lifted off into clear skies at noon EDT (1600 GMT) from NASA&s Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral
The two-stage, 23-story-tall Falcon 9 ascended from the launch tower as its nine Merlin engines roared to life in billowing clouds of vapor
and a reddish-orange fireball.The mission is notable for the inclusion of Anna Kikina, 38, the lone female cosmonaut on active duty with
Roscosmos, making it the first spaceflight with a Russian launched from U.S
As the spacecraft entered Earth orbit, Kikina radioed her thanks to NASA, Roscosmos and their International Space Station (ISS) partners for
&giving us this great opportunity.&&We&re so glad to do it together,& Kikina said.Kikina, who had trained in the United States for the
flight since spring 2021, was essentially swapping places with a NASA astronaut who took her seat aboard a Russian Soyuz flight to the ISS
last month under a new ride-sharing deal signed by NASA and Roscosmos in July.About nine minutes after Wednesday&s launch, the rocket&s
upper stage delivered the Crew Dragon into a preliminary orbit as it streaked through space at nearly 16,000 miles per hour (27,000 kph)
The reusable lower-stage booster flew itself back to Earth and landed safely on a drone recovery vessel at sea.The four crew members and
their autonomously flying capsule were due to reach the ISS in about 29 hours, on Thursday evening, to begin a 150-day science mission
aboard the orbital laboratory some 250 miles (420 km) above Earth, Reuters reported.The mission, designated Crew-5, marks the fifth
full-fledged ISS crew NASA has flown aboard a SpaceX vehicle since the private rocket venture founded by Tesla (TSLA.O) CEO Elon Musk began
astronauts aloft in May 2020.The team was led by Nicole Aunapu Mann, 45, who became the first Native American woman sent to orbit by NASA
and the first woman to take the commander&s seat of a SpaceX Crew Dragon.Moments after reaching orbit, as mission control wished the crew
&Godspeed,& Mann radioed back, &Awesome
Thank you so much to the Falcon team
Whew! That was a smooth ride uphill.&Mann, a U.S
Marine Corps colonel and combat fighter pilot, is also among the first group of 18 astronauts selected for NASA&s upcoming Artemis missions
aimed at returning humans to the moon later this decade.The designated pilot was Mann&s fellow spaceflight rookie Josh Cassada, 49, a U.S
Navy aviator and test pilot with a doctorate in high-energy particle physics
Rounding out the crew from Japan&s space agency JAXA was Koichi Wakata, 59, a robotics expert making his fifth voyage to space.The team will
be welcomed by seven existing ISS occupants & the Crew-4 team consisting of three Americans and an Italian astronaut & as well as two
Russians and the NASA astronaut who flew with them to orbit on a Soyuz flight.The new arrivals are set to conduct more than 200 experiments,
many focused on medical research ranging from 3-D &bio-printing& of human tissue to a study of bacteria cultured in microgravity, Reuters
reported.ISS, the length of a football field, has been continuously occupied since 2000, operated by a U.S.-Russian-led consortium that
includes Canada, Japan and 11 European countries
It was born in part to improve relations between Washington and Moscow following the Soviet Union&s collapse and the end of Cold War
rivalries that spurred the original American-Soviet space race.NASA-Roscosmos relations have been tested since Russia invaded Ukraine in
February and the United States imposed sweeping sanctions against Moscow.At a post-launch NASA-SpaceX briefing on Wednesday, Sergei
Krikalev, head of human spaceflight for Roscosmos, said he agency chief Yuri Borisov were seeking to ease tensions after Borisov&s
predecessor, Dmitry Rogozin, raised questions about the future of the ISS partnership.Krikalev cited bilateral teamwork in space dating back
to the Apollo-Soyuz era in 1975, saying, &We started our cooperation many years ago, over 40 years ago, and will continue our cooperation as
long as I can imagine.&The July crew-exchange deal paved the way for resuming routine joint U.S.-Russian flights to the ISS that had begun
during the space shuttle era and continued after shuttles ceased flying in 2011
From then until SpaceX began offering crewed launch services nine years later, Soyuz was the only avenue to orbit for U.S
astronauts.The post SpaceX capsule heads to space station ferrying NASA crew and Russian first appeared on Ariana News.
