Postponed due to a hurricane and in times of the most severe international tensions, NASA astronauts and a Russian cosmonaut are scheduled to launch from American soil to the International Space Station (ISS) for the first time since the beginning of the Russian war of aggression in Ukraine.
The “Crew-5” is to fly in the “Crew Dragon” of Elon Musk’s private space company SpaceX from the Cape Canaveral Cosmodrome (US state of Florida). The launch was actually scheduled for October 3, but had to be postponed due to Hurricane Ian.
Crew-5 consists of NASA astronaut Nicole Aunapu Mann and her NASA colleague Josh Cassada, as well as Japanese astronaut Koichi Wakata and Russian cosmonaut Anna Kikina. They are to spend around five months on board the ISS and take care of numerous scientific experiments.