By Richard Tew/NASA/JSC Correspondent for The Post Newspaper
If all goes to plan, two Americans, one Roscosmos cosmonaut and an astronaut from the United Arab Emirates (UAE) are scheduled to take a trip to the International Space Station in late February.
SpaceX’s Falcon 9 Rocket, topped with the Dragon “Endeavor” Spacecraft, will feature American astronauts Stephen Bowen (mission commander) and Warren Hoburg (pilot), Roscosmos cosmonaut Andrey Fedyaev (mission specialist) and UAE astronaut Sultan Al Neyadi (mission specialist).
NASA says the Crew-6 mission will launch from Kennedy Space Center in Florida on or after February 26. While on the ISS, scientific experiments and maintenance on the space station will be performed.
To date, SpaceX, one of NASA’s commercial partners, has supplied rockets for seven crewed missions.
This flight will be Bowen’s fourth having previously flown on three space shuttle missions, with Hoburg, Fedyaev and Al Neyadi logging their first flights to outer space and to the ISS.
In a recent interview, Bowen recounted an experience aboard the ISS from one of his previous three flights. He talked about how profound looking down at the Earth from nearly 240 miles on the ISS up can be.
“I’m looking down at the Earth go below us. It was remarkable,” said Bowen. “As a civilization—a global—civilization, it’s amazing. That realization made me realize, you can get this experience on Earth. If we all just took the time to look around us, to look at civilization—both the natural part and what’s been built—there’s some incredibly-amazing things that will take your breath away if you think about it. How far we have come, and how far we have yet to go.”
To watch the launch live, visit NASA’s website at www.nasa.gov or follow NASA’s Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/NASA.
When he’s not writing about NASA and JSC, Richard Tew teaches Irish dance to ages three through adult in Clear Lake. Learn more at www.tew-academy.org.
