The International Space Station provides humankind with a means of studying space physics in person, but astronauts can’t stay there forever. Space agencies rotate its occupants every few months to ensure good health and concurrently keep space-based experiments in check.
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After Joe Acaba and Mark Vande Hei of NASA and Alexander Misurkin of Roscosmos returned home at the end of February after 168 days in space, the Earth-orbiting space lab sported a vacancy for three.
On the other hand, a crewed Soyuz MS-08 capsule docked with the International Space Station at 3:40 P.M. EDT on Friday and filled that vacancy. You can watch everything take place in the video embedded below:
The International Space Station’s newest arrivals include Drew Feustel and Ricky Arnold of NASA and Oleg Artemyev of Roscosmos. They will accompany Scott Tingle of NASA, Anton Shkaplerov of Roscosmos, and Norishige Kanai of JAXA, all three of which were already present on the International Space Station.
The capsule that brought the new spacemen to the International Space station took more than two days to reach its destination. Drew Feustel recounted his experience during the trip during a conference shortly after docking:
“It was a long ride,” he said. “We counted 50 hours from the time that we took off until we arrived at the space station. We had a nice time, just the three of us. It was relaxing, and we just enjoyed circling around the Earth and seeing all the beautiful sights. We’re all looking forward to getting to work.”
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This will be both Arnold’s and Artemyev’s second spaceflight, but it’s Feustel’s third. The three will spend at least five months on the International Space Station as they conduct various scientific experiments and perform the usual upkeep.
In fact, Arnold and Feustel have a near-future spacewalk planned in which they’ll repair and upgrade external equipment. NASA will likely live-stream the event when it takes place.
Source: Spaceflight Insider
