The astronauts Michael Hopkins, Victor Glover, Shannon Walker and Soichi Noguchi have left the slightly overcrowded space station ISS and are now on their return flight to Earth.
Washington (AP) – After around six months on board the International Space Station, four astronauts have left the ISS again.
The US space travelers Michael Hopkins, Victor Glover and Shannon Walker as well as their Japanese colleague Soichi Noguchi docked on Sunday night with a “Crew Dragon” capsule from the private space company SpaceX from the ISS, as announced by SpaceX and the US space agency NASA . On Sunday they should land in the sea off the US state of Florida – the return flight to earth had been postponed by a day due to bad weather. The so-called “Crew-1” docked at the ISS in November.
The space station has recently been tight: In addition to “Crew-1”, cosmonauts Oleg Nowizki and Pyotr Dubrow and NASA astronaut Mark Vande Hei have also been on board since the beginning of April, and last weekend four astronauts from “Crew-2” came on board. in addition – the US astronauts Shane Kimbrough and Megan McArthur as well as their Japanese colleague Akihiko Hoshide and the French Thomas Pesquet.
“Crew-1” was the first to fly regularly to the ISS in the “Crew Dragon” after a manned test flight to the ISS last spring was successful. After a break of almost nine years, the test was the first in which astronauts returned to orbit from American soil – and the first time ever that they were promoted by a private space company. The start of the “Crew-3” is currently planned for October.
© dpa-infocom, dpa: 210502-99-434300 / 2
Information from NASA
