International space station welcomes its first astronauts from India, Poland and Hungary
Canaveral Cape, Florida – The first astronauts in more than 40 years from India, Poland and Hungary arrived at the International Space Station Thursday, which was transported by SpaceX to a private flight.
The four crew will spend two weeks in the orbit laboratory, carrying out dozens of experiences. They launched on Wednesday at the NASA Kennedy Space Center.
The most experienced astronaut in America, Peggy Whitson, is the guest crew commander. She works for Axiom Space, the Houston Company which organized the chartered flight.
Besides Whitson, the crew includes Shubhanshu Shubhanshu from India, an Indian Air Force pilot; Tibor Kapu of Hungary, mechanical engineer; And Poland Slawosz Uznanski-Wisnishwski, a radiation expert and one of the astronauts from the European Space Agency in temporary flight service.
No one has ever visited the international space station of these countries before. The moment when anyone who came into orbit of these countries was in the late 1970s and 1980s, traveling with the Soviets.
“It is an honor to join our outpost of international cooperation and exploration,” said NASA Mission Control radio in Houston after the Linkup above the North Atlantic.
The new arrivals shared hugs and handshakes with the seven full -time residents of the space station, celebrating with sachets of drinks sipped straws. Six nations were represented: four from the United States, three from Russia and one from Japan, India, Poland and Hungary.
“It’s so great to be here finally. It was a long quarantine,” said Whitson, referring to the extra-long isolation of the crew before takeoff to stay healthy.
They entered quarantine on May 25, stayed in it while their launch remained delayed. The last postponement was for the surveillance of the leaks from the space station, NASA wanted to make sure that everything was safe after the repairs of a long-standing leak on the Russian side of the outpost.
This is the fourth flight sponsored by Axiom to the space station since 2022. The company is one of the many that developed their own space stations due to the launch in the coming years. NASA plans to abandon the international space station in 2030 after more than three decades of operation, and encourages private companies to replace it.
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