Washington:
The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) and European Space Agency (ESA) have chosen 3 astronauts to serve as crew members for NASA’s SpaceX Crew-3 mission to the International Space Station, which is anticipated to launch in the fall of 2021.
According to the NASA, the trio will consist astronauts Raja Chari, an Indian-American US Air Force colonel, and Tom Marshburn, who will serve as commander and pilot, respectively, and ESA astronaut Matthias Maurer, who will serve as a mission specialist. A fourth crew member will be added at a later date, following a evaluation by NASA and its international partners.
This will be the very first spaceflight for Chari, who became a NASA astronaut in 2017. He was born in Milwaukee, but considers Cedar Falls, Iowa, his hometown. He is a colonel in the US Air Force and joins the mission with comprehensive expertise as a test pilot. He has accumulated more than 2,500 hours of flight time in his profession. Chari was chosen earlier this month as a member of the Artemis Team and is now eligible for assignment to a future lunar mission.
Marshburn is a Statesville, North Carolina, native who became an astronaut in 2004. Prior to serving in the astronaut corps, the healthcare medical professional served as flight surgeon at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston and later became healthcare operations lead for the International Space Station.
“The Crew-3 mission will be his third visit to the space station and his second long-duration mission. Marshburn previously served as a crew member of STS-127 in 2009 and Expedition 34/35, which concluded in 2013,” the NASA mentioned.
Maurer comes from Sankt Wendel, in the German state of Saarland. Like Chari, Maurer will be generating his very first trip to space with the Crew-3 mission. In 2016, Maurer spent 16 days on an undersea mission as element of a NASA’s Extreme Environment Mission Operations, or NEEMO, space analog.
When Chari, Marshburn, and Maurer arrive at the orbiting laboratory, they will turn out to be expedition crew members for the duration of their six-month remain.
“The crew will have a slight overlap with the Crew-2 astronauts, who are expected to launch in the spring of 2021. This will not be the first commercial crew mission to overlap. The Crew-1 astronauts, who are currently on station, and the Crew-2 astronauts, also are expected to coincide in their sojourns for a short time. Increasing the total number of astronauts aboard the station is allowing the agency to boost the number of science investigations conducted in the unique microgravity environment.”
This will be the third crew rotation mission of SpaceX’s human space transportation technique and its fourth flight with astronauts, such as the Demo-2 test flight, to the space station by way of NASA’s Commercial Crew Program.
The aim of the system is to provide protected, trustworthy, and price-efficient crew access to the space station and low-Earth orbit in partnership with American aerospace business.
Moreover, the station is a crucial test bed for NASA to fully grasp and overcome the challenges of lengthy-duration spaceflight.