A new crew has arrived at the International Space Station
15 February 10:12
A new crew arrived at the International Space Station on Saturday, February 14. This happened a month after the emergency return of the previous team. NASA astronauts Jessica Meir and Jack Gatteway, Frenchwoman Sophie Adenaud, and Russian cosmonaut Andrey Fedyaev reached the station in 34 hours, according to "Komersant Ukrainian", citing DW.
The Crew-12 mission team launched on Friday from Kennedy Space Center in Florida on a Falcon 9 rocket. The docking went smoothly, restoring full staffing at the station.
In mid-January, four members of the previous Crew-11 mission were forced to return to Earth ahead of schedule. This was the first medical evacuation in the history of the ISS, but NASA has not yet disclosed which crew members had health problems or what exactly those problems were.
ISS crew on orbit
Since the departure of the previous shift, work at the station, located at an altitude of 400 kilometers, has been carried out by American astronaut Chris Williams and Russian cosmonauts Sergei Kud-Sverchkov and Sergei Mikayev. The arrival of reinforcements brought the crew back to its standard size.
“When we look at Earth through these windows, we are reminded that cooperation is not only possible, but necessary,” Meir said after the docking. According to her, there are no borders in space, and hope is a universal concept.
Frenchwoman Adeno called the flight “intense but very fun,” emphasizing the beauty of the planet without visible dividing lines. She became the second woman from France to go into space, following in the footsteps of Claudie Haigneré, who flew into orbit in 1996 and 2001.
US cooperation with Russia in space continues
The Crew-12 astronauts will spend eight to nine months on the ISS conducting a series of scientific experiments. Space remains one of the few areas where the US and Russia continue to work together, despite Russia’s war against Ukraine.
