LAKE MARY, Fla. - NASA said the SpaceX Crew Dragon spacecraft Endurance docked with the International Space Station early Thursday evening some 22 hours after liftoff from Launch Complex 39A at the Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida.
NASA astronauts Raja Chari, Tom Marshburn, Kayla Barron, and ESA astronaut Matthias Maurer arrived at the International Space Station at 6:32 p.m. EST Thursday, Nov. 11. Crew Dragon Endurance docked to the orbital complex while the spacecrafts were flying 260 miles above the eastern Caribbean Sea.
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The crews began conducting standard leak checks and pressurization between the spacecraft in preparation for hatch opening which occurred just before 8:30 p.m. EST.
Chari, Marshburn, Barron, and Maurer will join the Expedition 66 crew of Mark Vande Hei of NASA and cosmonauts Anton Shkaplerov and Pyotr Dubrov of Roscosmos for a planned six-month mission living and working aboard the microgravity laboratory to advance scientific knowledge and demonstrate new technologies for future human and robotic exploration missions as part of NASA’s Moon and Mars exploration approach, including lunar missions through NASA’s Artemis program.
With the arrival of the Crew Dragon Endurance, five spaceships are now parked at the space station including Northrop Grumman’s Cygnus space freighter; the SpaceX Crew Dragon vehicle; and Russia’s Soyuz MS-19 crew ship, and Progress 78 and 79 resupply ships.
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