Crew members with NASA’s SpaceX Crew-6 mission are in orbit following their successful launch to the International Space Station the morning of Thursday, March 2, from Launch Complex 39A at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center.
The international crew are the agency’s sixth commercial crew rotation mission with SpaceX aboard the orbital laboratory, according to a release from NASA.
A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket propelled the Dragon spacecraft, named Endeavour, into orbit carrying NASA astronauts Stephen Bowen and Warren Hoburg, along with United Arab Emirates astronaut Sultan Alneyadi and Roscosmos cosmonaut Andrey Fedyaev, for a science expedition aboard the space station.
During Dragon’s flight, SpaceX will monitor a series of automatic spacecraft maneuvers from its mission control center in Hawthorne, California, and NASA teams will monitor space station operations throughout the flight from the Mission Control Center at the agency’s Johnson Space Center in Houston.
In February, Houston-based Axiom Space selected four crew members for its Axiom Mission 2, the second privately funded mission to the International Space Station. Ax-2 will be the first mission including both private astronauts and those representing foreign governments, and the crew includes the first woman commander of a private space mission.
Recently, an annual report found Texas continues to make its mark in defense and aerospace. With more than 138,000 professionals in the fields at more than 1,800 installations across the state operated by 18 of the world’s top 20 aerospace manufacturers, Texas was found to be best equipped to foster defense and aerospace growth.
