Multi-national Crew Launched to International Space Station

By Bob Granath

Four astronaut specialists, four space agencies, four nations launched from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center for a long-term mission aboard the International Space Station. It’s an effort emblematic of America’s growing effort to involve global participation in space exploration. The Crew-7 commander is NASA astronaut Jasmin Moghbeli. Joining her are European Space Agency (ESA) astronaut Andreas Mogensen of Denmark, Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency astronaut Satoshi Furukawa and Roscosmos cosmonaut Konstantin Borisov of Russia.

A SpaceX Crew Dragon spacecraft lifted off atop the company’s Falcon 9 rocket from the Florida spaceport’s Launch Complex 39A at 3:27 a.m. EDT on Aug. 26, 2023. NASA and SpaceX managers postponed an Aug. 25 launch attempt. The delay provided teams additional time to complete analysis of a component of the Crew Dragon spacecraft’s environmental control and life support system.

During a prelaunch news conference, Moghbeli spoke of what she termed “the incredible experience” of being part of such a diverse crew.

“It’s something I am really excited about,” she said. “It is very special and important to each of us. (This effort) represents what we can do when we work together in harmony.”

“We have a lot of exciting research and technology development that we look forward to for the close to six-months that we will be on board the space station,” Mogensen said during the briefing.

Together with the three other Expectation 70 crewmembers, they will continue ongoing research aboard the orbital laboratory designed to benefit humans living on and off the Earth. What is learned in orbit will help NASA prepare for operations on and around the Moon and eventual exploration of Mars.

Crew-7 continues the agency’s Commercial Crew Program, a collaboration with industry to provide safe, reliable, and cost-effective transportation to and from the space station. The orbiting outpost remains the springboard for exploration beyond low-Earth orbit. The crew plans to dock their spacecraft to the forward port on the station’s Harmony module about 24 hours after launch.

During the International Space Station’s Expedition 70, the crew will continue more than 23 years of work advancing scientific knowledge and demonstrating new technologies, making research breakthroughs not possible on Earth. As a global endeavor, 269 people from 21 countries have visited the unique microgravity laboratory that has hosted more than 3,000 research and educational investigations from researchers in 109 countries and areas.

Research aboard the space station is paving the way for future long-duration trips to the Moon and beyond through NASA’s Artemis missions. With the Orion spacecraft and Space Launch System rocket, NASA’s Artemis Program, is designed to achieve that goal of expanding human presence on the Moon and in deep space enabling exploration of new destinations in the solar system.

Once aboard the space station, the Crew-7 astronauts will be welcomed by the seven-members of Expedition 69 made up by NASA’s Crew-6 astronauts Stephen Bowen and Woody Hoburg of the United States, along with Sultan Alneyadi of the United Arab Emirates and Roscosmos cosmonaut Andrey Fedyaev of Russia. They have been living and working on the orbital lab since Mach 3, 2023.

Also aboard will be NASA astronaut Frank Rubio with cosmonauts Sergey Prokopyev and Dmitri Petelin who arrived on Sept. 21, 2022 aboard the Soyuz MS-22 spacecraft launched from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. Their Soyuz will depart Sept. 27, 2023 after 371 days on the space station.

The Crew

U.S. Marine Corps Lt. Col. Moghbeli was born in Bad Nauheim, West Germany, to Iranian parents originally from Tehran. The couple fled following the 1979 Islamic Revolution and eventually immigrated to Baldwin, New York. Her interest in NASA began while a high school student, when she attended the Space Camp’s Advanced Space Academy at the Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama.

Moghbeli went on to earn a bachelor’s degree in aerospace engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. She became a Marine helicopter pilot in 2005. She received a master’s degree in aerospace engineering from the U.S. Naval Postgraduate School in California and attended the U.S. Naval Test Pilot School at Patuxent River Naval Air Station, Maryland. She was selected as a NASA astronaut in 2017.

“This is something I’ve wanted to do for as long as I can remember,” Moghbeli said before the flight, noting that Crew-7 is her first trip into space. “One of the things I’m most excited about is looking back at our beautiful planet. Everyone I’ve talked to who has flown already has said that was kind of a life-changing perspective to see our Earth in that way. Floating around in space seems really fun.’

Mogensen is a native of Copenhagen, Denmark, where he graduated with a bachelor’s degree from the Copenhagen International School in 1995. Four years later, he received a master’s in aeronautical engineering from Imperial College London. In in 2007, Mogensen earned a doctorate in aerospace engineering from the University of Texas at Austin.

Mogensen was selected by ESA to become the first Danish astronaut in May 2009. He was a flight engineer on the Soyuz TMA-18M crew launched to the International Space Station on Sept. 2, 2015. One of the experiments he plans for the upcoming mission includes renewing studies of unusual weather phenomena.

“I’ll be taking photos of giant lightning strikes what we call blue jets and red spikes,” Mogensen said. “These are a special type of lightning that shoots upwards from the top of thunderclouds up towards space. It’s a continuation of an experiment I did on my first mission.”

Blue jets and red spikes are flashes of lightning that occur above thunderstorms and that are associated with normal lightning in thunderclouds below. Red sprites tend to form almost instantaneously over a broad region between about 25 to 55 miles in altitude. The causes of both are unknown.

After growing up in Yokohama, Japan, Furakawa earned a doctor of medicine degree in 1989, and, later, a doctor of philosophy in medical science in 2000, both from the University of Tokyo. From 1989 to 1999, he worked in the Department of Surgery at the University of Tokyo, as well as the Department of Anesthesiology at JR Tokyo General Hospital, the Department of Surgery at Ibaraki Prefectural Central Hospital and at Sakuragaoka Hospital.

In 1999, Furukawa was selected as one of three Japanese astronauts for work aboard the International Space Station. His first spaceflight began with liftoff of Soyuz TMA-02M from the Baikonur Cosmodrome on June 7, 2011, returning Nov. 22, 2011.

As a surgeon, Furukawa explained that he is “very excited” to perform research into manufacturing better pharmaceuticals during his stay aboard the space station.

“A protein crystallization experiment under zero gravity will give us better quality protein crystals,” he said. “After bringing it back to Earth and analyzing, we can know the 3D (three-dimensional) details of the structure of the crystals. By doing this experiment, we can enhance the development of new drugs.”

Borisov also is making his first trip to space. He was born in Smolensk, Russia, and earned a bachelor’s degree from the Russian Academy of Economics in 2007. During 2006 and 2007, he studied at Warwick University, Coventry in the United Kingdom, where he was awarded a master’s in operations research and systems analysis. He entered the Roscosmos cosmonaut corps in 2018.

“I’m really looking forward to the adventure and I’m really excited and honored to do that with these guys,” he said. “I look forward to feeling the experience weightlessness and looking at the planet Earth form above.”

The Spacecraft

The SpaceX Crew Dragon is an autonomous spacecraft designed to deliver a mix of crew and cargo to low-Earth orbit. The Crew-3 and Crew-5 astronauts previously flew this mission’s Crew Dragon spacecraft, named Endurance. The capsule is 27 feet high and 13 feet in diameter.

For NASA trips to the International Space Station, the spacecraft can carry from four to seven agency-sponsored crewmembers and return astronauts with about 6,600 pounds of time-critical scientific research experiments and equipment. The capsule’s trunk is an integral element of the spacecraft, containing solar panels, heat-removal radiators, and fins to provide aerodynamic stability in the unlikely event of an emergency abort.

The Falcon 9 launch vehicle is 229 feet tall and is 12 feet in diameter. The first stage has nine engines generating 1,710,000 pounds of thrust. The second stage has one engine with 210,000 pounds of thrust. Propellant for both stages are RP-1, highly refined kerosene, and liquid oxygen. Like the Crew Dragon spacecraft, the first stage of the rocket is reusable. Following liftoff, the Falcon 9 first stage will separate from the second stage and land at SpaceX’s Landing Zone 1 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station.

The Mission

Before launch, the Crew-7 astronauts participated in training at Kennedy, NASA’s Johnson Space center in Houston, the SpaceX headquarters in Hawthorne, California, as well as traveling and to international partner agencies for system and payload briefings.

Crew-7 will conduct new more than 200 scientific research Experiments including the collection of microbial samples from the exterior of the space station, the first study of human response to different spaceflight durations, and an investigation of the physiological aspects of astronauts’ sleep.

While aboard the orbiting laboratory, Crew-7 will see the arrival of both the SpaceX Dragon and the Roscosmos Progress cargo spacecraft. The Soyuz MS-24 spacecraft with NASA astronaut Loral O’Hara along with Roscosmos cosmonauts Oleg Kononenko and Nikolai Chub are scheduled to launch Sept. 15, 2023.

Crew-8 astronauts Matthew Dominick, Michael Barratt, and Jeanette Epps, of the United States, along with Aleksandr Grebyonkin of Russia are scheduled to launch to the space station in February 2024. After completing a short handover, the Crew-7 Dragon spacecraft will autonomously undock from the space station splashing down off the Florida coast. A SpaceX recovery vessel will pick up the astronauts and bring it back to shore.

© 2023 SpaceAgeChronicle.com All Rights Reserved

Crew-7 Lifts Off to International Space Station

Check out this short video of the liftoff of NASA astronaut Jasmin Moghbeli, European Space Agency astronaut Andreas Mogensen of Denmark, Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency astronaut Satoshi Furukawa, and Roscosmos cosmonaut Konstantin Borisov of Russia. Video courtesy of NASA