SpaceX launches US, Russia, UAE astronauts to space station

Facts

• On Thursday, SpaceX launched its Crew Dragon capsule from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida — it held three astronauts and a Russian cosmonaut aboard. The Falcon 9 rocket lit up the sky at lift-off, accelerating the capsule to a speed of 17.5K mph (28,160 km/h) before it escaped Earth's gravity and went into orbit. The mission is aimed at replacing the current crew at the International Space Station (ISS).¹
• Mission crew members include leader and retired Navy submariner Stephen Bowen, a former research scientist at MIT Warren 'Woody' Hoburg, Andrey Fedyaev, a space rookie retired from the Russian Air Force, and Emirati Sultan al-Neyadi, a communication's engineer and the first person from the Arab world to make a months-long stay at the ISS.²
• Upon reaching orbit, astronaut Al-Neyadi offered thanks in Arabic and then English. 'Launch was incredible. Amazing,' he said.³
• Al-Neyadi will be joined by two Saudi astronauts this spring on a short flight to the space station funded by the Saudi government. He is taking many dates to share with his crewmates during Ramadan, the holy month of Muslim fasting which begins in March. As for observing Ramadan in orbit, he has said fasting isn't compulsory since it could make him weak and jeopardize his mission.⁴
• The four new arrivals at the ISS will replace a US-Russian-Japanese crew that has been at the station since October. The other station residents are comprised of two Russians and an American, whose six-month stay was doubled until September after the Soyuz capsule sprang a leak. A replacement Soyuz arrived last weekend.³
• The trip to the International Space Station (ISS), which orbits 250 miles above Earth, will take approximately 25 hours. Rendezvous is planned for about 1:15 a.m. EST on Friday.⁵

Sources: ¹NPR Online News, ²Al Jazeera, ³NBC, ⁴ABC News and ⁵Trtworld.

Narratives

• Narrative A, as provided by Al Jazeera. Russia's invasion of Ukraine has sparked a backlash among Russia's space agency partners. However, despite the political turmoil on Earth, the US and Russia have been able to continue to collaborate at the ISS. Elon Musk's SpaceX Crew Dragon revived NASA's human spaceflight capability and is now the guarantor of US-Russian cooperation in space.
• Narrative B, as provided by Euronews. The ISS stands as one of the few remaining areas where Russian and American cooperation is still operating successfully. However, if Russia doesn't act soon to reform its oppressive regime and begin governing within the bounds of international law, there isn't much of a future for its role within the space program beyond the ISS.

Predictions