NASA's SpaceX Crew-11 mission lifts off for ISS
(NEXSTAR) – The latest mission on NASA's Commercial Crew Program successfully launched from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida on Friday, sending SpaceX Crew-11 on its journey toward the International Space Station.
This was the second attempt to launch Crew-11 to the ISS after an earlier scheduled launch on Thursday was scrubbed just moments before liftoff due to "unfavorable weather," NASA said.
Several moments later, the spacecraft reached orbit where the SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket separated from the Dragon capsule. The crew — Commander Zena Cardman and pilot Mike Fincke of NASA, along with mission specialists Kimiya Yui of Japan’s Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) and Oleg Platonov of Russia’s Roscosmos space program — will be arriving at the ISS around 15 hours after Friday's liftoff, according to NASA.
The mission also marks Cardman and Platonov’s first spaceflights.
After reaching the ISS, the group will “undertake a brief handover period” before the members of SpaceX Crew-10 (which launched in March) head back to Earth.
The SpaceX-11 crew is expected to further study and experiment with methods to maintain the health of astronauts on future missions, including a possible expedition to Mars, while they’re aboard the ISS, according to NASA.
The crew's other focuses of research will include "studying stem cell production methods to develop advanced cures, new ways to treat bacterial infections, and space agriculture techniques,” the agency says.
On Thursday morning before the scrubbed initial launch, the crew readied for their mission with a “long-held spaceflight tradition,” according to NASA: a card game.
“The astronauts are not anything if they’re not superstitious, so this is one of those traditions,” a representative for NASA says in a video of Thursday morning’s card game.
“The game changes every mission, it’s really up to the chief of the office to figure out what that game is going to be. But the goal is the same: You go until the commander wins, and you have shaken off all of the bad luck, if you will.”