SpaceX and NASA send international astronauts to space

The rocket just hit “MECO” – or main engine cutoff. That means the 9 Merlin engines that power the SpaceX rocket’s first-stage — the ones that give the initial thrust at liftoff — are done burning fuel for now, and it’s time for the rocket’s second stage to take over.

One, single engine powers the second stage and it’s specifically design to operate efficiently outside the Earth’s atmosphere.

The SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket just hit  “Max Q,” an aerospace term that refers to the point during flight at which a vehicle experiences its maximum dynamic pressure.

Put simply: It’s when the rocket is moving at very high speed, at a time when the atmosphere is still pretty thick, putting a lot of pressure on the vehicle.  

The SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket, carrying that Crew Dragon capsule, just took off from the launch pad at Kennedy Space Center in Florida, which is on the state’s coast due East of Orlando.

This begins a five-month journey for the crew of four astronauts.

On board is NASA’s astronaut Nicole Aunapu Mann, who is the mission’s commander. She will also be the first Native American woman to travel to Earth’s orbit and the first woman to command a SpaceX mission.

Also in the capsule is NASA astronaut Josh Cassada, who is from Minnesota; Koichi Wakata of Japan’s space agency, called JAXA, or Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency; and Anna Kikina, a Roscomos cosmonaut who joined this mission as part of a US-Russian ride-sharing agreement.

From left: NASA astronaut Josh Cassada, NASA astronaut Nicole Mann, Roscosmos cosmonaut Anna Kikina, and Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) astronaut Koichi Wakata right, as they depart for Launch Complex 39A to board the SpaceX Crew Dragon spacecraft for the Crew-5 mission launch at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center, FL, today.. 

In a historic flight, the members of the Crew-5 mission come from around the world.

First are NASA astronauts Nicole Mann and Josh Cassada. Mann will be the commander of the mission, meaning she will be responsible for ensuring the spacecraft is on track from the time it launches until it docks with the ISS — and again when it returns home with the four Crew-5 astronauts next year.

Also flying will be astronaut Koichi Wakata of JAXA, or Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency, and cosmonaut Anna Kikina of Russia’s space agency, Roscosmos.

Mann and Cassada both joined NASA in 2013. Cassada has described Mann as one of his “closest friends on the planet.”

As with Mann, this mission will be the first trip to space for Cassada and Kikina.

For veteran astronaut Wakata, who has previously flown on both NASA’s space shuttle and Russia’s Soyuz spacecraft, this trip marks his fifth spaceflight mission.

The SpaceX Crew Dragon spacecraft is set to launch at 12 p.m. ET Wednesday from Kennedy Space Center in Florida.

Earlier in the day, NASA spotlighted one of the engineers that supports NASA’s Commercial Crew Program, or CCP, which is the name of the program that underlies NASA and SpaceX’s joint partnership on these astronaut flights.

Crystal Jones is the deputy manager of NASA’s CCP ground and mission operations, which is charged with “assessing ground systems for crew safety for both lunch ops and recovery,” among other tasks, Jones said.

She shared her backstory:

“I did always know that I wanted to work as NASA, ” Jones said, “ever since I was a very young girl.”

But since she was a preteen, she said, her parents’ drug and alcohol abuse impacted her life in a “severe way.”

But Jones said she used school computers to learn how to apply for colleges and financial aid. She ultimately got a bachelor’s degree in astrophysics from the Florida Institute of Technology in Melbourne, Florida — which is just a 40-mile drive from NASA’s launch facilities. Ultimately, she earned a bachelor’s in astrophysics and a masters in space systems.

Later in life, her parents overcame their addictions, though her mother passed away earlier this year.

“This necklace that I’m wearing is made with her ashes,” Jones said on NASA’s livestream. “And I wear it for every launch in her memory.”

SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket is seen on the launch pad at Launch Complex 39A on October 4 at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida. 

Once members of the Crew-5 mission arrive on the International Space Station, the science begins. The astronauts will set to work conducting spacewalks, during which astronauts exit the ISS, to maintain the space station’s exterior, as well as performing more than 200 science experiments.

One line of study revolves around getting closer to the long-term plan of printing human organs in space. BioFabrication Facility (BFF) arrived at the space station in 2019, according to NASA, but later had to go back to earth for maintenance and upgrades in 2020.

Now, this fall, the BFF will be back in space. Crews will use it to continue to test the “in-orbit manufacture of cardiac and orthopedic tissue” among other things, NASA said.

Other studies will involve research that will help inform future space missions — like theLiquid Behavior investigation. NASA said the goal is to better predict how liquids move around in zero gravity so that scientists can improve the designs of lunar rovers.

Scientists say heart stem cells could provide a way to treat heart disease and, according to NASA, microgravity might be the key to producing more of these cells, improving their viability and accelerating the rate at which these heart stem cells mature.

Meet the crew: NASA’s astronaut Nicole Aunapu Mann will serve as mission commander and also become the first Native American woman to travel to Earth’s orbit.

She’ll fly alongside fellow NASA astronaut Josh Cassada, who is from Minnesota; Koichi Wakata of Japan’s space agency, called JAXA, or Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency; and Anna Kikina, a Roscomos cosmonaut who joined this mission as part of a US-Russian ride-sharing agreement.

NASA astronaut Nicole Mann, left, speaks to members of the media after arriving at the Launch and Landing Facility with fellow crew members Roscosmos cosmonaut Anna Kikina, second from left, NASA astronaut Josh Cassada, second from right, and Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) astronaut Koichi Wakata, right, at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center on Oct. 1.

The Crew-5 mission will mark the sixth astronaut launch that SpaceX has carried out in partnership with NASA since 2020 as part of a broader effort to outsource human spaceflight and other International Space Station activities to the private sector. It also is an example of the progress that has been made when it comes to diversity in space.

In her role as commander, Nicole Aunapu Mann will become the first Native American woman ever to travel to Earth’s orbit. She will be responsible for ensuring the spacecraft is on track from the time it launches until it docks with the ISS and again when it returns home with the four Crew-5 astronauts next year.

Never before has a woman taken on the commander role on a SpaceX mission, though a couple women served in that position during the Space Shuttle Program, which NASA retired in 2011.

In the years after NASA was formed in the mid-20th century, astronauts were all White men — even through the final days of the space agency’s famed Apollo program. That only changed when Sally Ride became the first American woman in space in 1983, and she was followed shortly after by the first Black person in space, Guion Bluford.

Since then, NASA has worked to make its astronaut corps more diverse. The space agency’s new, cornerstone human spaceflight program, called Artemis, aims to land the first woman and first person of color on the moon.

The Artemis program hasn’t taken off yet, as NASA is still working to get its mega moon rocket off the ground. But Mann was selected as one of 18 astronauts that could be assigned to the program’s first moon landing mission.

Crews at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center are fueling up the SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket that will take the Crew-5 astronauts to space.

The rocket will take on 1 million pounds of fuel, including liquid oxygen and the aptly named RP-1 — or rocket propellant 1, ahead of liftoff.

The plumes of what looks like smoke coming off the rocket are actually just liquid oxygen vaporizing off the rocket, boiling off as it comes in contact with the hot Florida air.

NASA astronaut Nicole Mann photographed in September 2020 at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston.

The first Native American woman ever to travel to Earth’s orbit will take flight this week on a SpaceX Crew Dragon capsule. The astronaut, NASA’s Nicole Aunapu Mann, will serve as mission commander — also becoming the first woman to command a SpaceX flight.

The former US Marine Corps pilot’s historic journey — and her first trip to space since joining NASA’s astronaut corps in 2013 — will officially launch on Wednesday.

Mann and her three crewmates will travel to the International Space Station for a five-month stay, joining a long list of astronauts to serve as full-time staff aboard the orbiting laboratory, which has hosted humans for nearly 22 years.

In her role as commander, Mann will be responsible for ensuring the spacecraft is on track from the time it launches until it docks with the ISS and again when it returns home with the four Crew-5 astronauts next year. Never before has a woman taken on the commander role on a SpaceX mission, though a couple women served in that position during the Space Shuttle Program, which NASA retired in 2011.

Mann grew up in Northern California and is a registered member of the Wailacki tribe of the Round Valley reservation, which encompasses several Indigenous tribes that were forced onto the same post-colonial reservation in the mid-1800s.

Her crewmates will also represent a broad swath of cultural backgrounds. She’ll fly alongside fellow NASA astronaut Josh Cassada, who is from Minnesota; Koichi Wakata of Japan’s space agency, called JAXA, or Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency; and Anna Kikina, a Roscomos cosmonaut who joined this mission as part of a US-Russian ride-sharing agreement.

Roscosmos cosmonaut Anna Kikina, of Russia, speaks to reporters after arriving at the Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Fla., Saturday, Oct. 1.

American and Russian astronauts will once again share space aboard the same spacecraft after NASA and its Russian counterpart, Roscosmos, reached a ride-sharing agreement in July.

As part of the deal, Russian cosmonauts will join at least two SpaceX missions to the International Space Station, marking the first time a Russian has boarded one of SpaceX’s relatively new Crew Dragon spacecraft.

Russian cosmonaut Anna Kikina will be on the SpaceX rocket that is launching on Wednesday, and Andrei Fedyaev will fly on another SpaceX mission in the spring of 2023, according to NASA. On the flip side, two seats on two separate launches of Russia’s Soyuz spacecraft have been reserved for NASA astronauts.

The seat-swap agreement, which does not involve any exchange of payment between the countries, has been looming over NASA and Roscosmos for months amid rising tensions between the United States and Russia over the war in Ukraine.

NASA has repeatedly said that tensions on the ground have had no affect on the countries’ ongoing cooperation in space, though the ISS — which is jointly operated by NASA, Roscosmos and several other space agencies — has become the subject of bellicose rhetoric levied by Russian politicians. Dmitry Rogozin, who was replaced as the head of Roscosmos over the summer, had threatened to pull Russian cooperation from the ISS entirely.

The history: Such ride sharing agreements have been common throughout the two-decade history of the ISS. After NASA retired the Space Shuttle program in 2011, for example, American astronauts had to rely entirely on seats aboard Soyuz spacecraft for access to the ISS. That reliance ended only after SpaceX’s Crew Dragon entered service in 2020.