Axiom-4’s journey began at 12.01 pm Wednesday when SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket blasted off from Launch Complex 39A at the Kennedy Space Center in the US.Air Force pilot Shubhanshu Shukla wrote a historic new chapter in the country’s space exploration story Thursday after becoming the first Indian to float into the International Space Station.
Live visuals from the ISS showed Shukla, and the other three astronauts on the Crew Dragon capsule, being helped through the vestibule connecting the spacecraft and the ISS. Each had big grins on their face and were welcomed with bear hugs by the seven astronauts already on the ISS.
The four then lined up for a photo op drinking liquids from a foil packet.
The capsule that carried the astronauts – part of Axiom-4, a private mission – docked this evening, completing a 28-hour flight from Florida’s Kennedy Space Centre to a point 424km over the northern Atlantic Ocean.Docking is the procedure by which a spacecraft connects to the space station.
But before that docking can even begin the spacecraft must first rendezvous with the space station, meaning they must both be in the same orbital plane and be positioned close to each other.What follows is a series of complicated manoeuvres, including precise positioning by matching positional (location) and velocity vectors (speed and direction) to confirm a safe and secure physical connection between the spacecraft and space station to allow exchange of astronauts and cargo.
And then, at 4.01 pm (India time), Mission Control confirmed a ‘soft capture’, i.e., a connection allowing the spacecraft, named Grace after it reached orbit, and the station some room to move to absorb kinetic energy generated during initial contact.
Minutes later a ‘hard capture’, i.e., a more robust connection, was confirmed and, at 4.15 pm (India time) NASA said the docking sequence had been completed. “We are honored to be here… thank you,” Mission Commander Peggy Whitson told the International Space Station in a live stream of the docking.
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