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Here Are the Crew Dragon 3 Mission Astronauts, Rookies on Board

The SpaceX Crew Dragon is the greatest thing that happened in space exploration in our generation’s lifetime. Having just become the first private spacecraft certified by NASA, the capsule is already hard at work ferrying people to and from the International Space Station.
Crew Dragon 3 astronauts 1 photo
Photo: NASA/ESA
The Crew Dragon had three flights to the ISS already, first empty, and then with people on board. The last flight (with a capsule called Resilience), which was officially the first one considered operational by the space agency, took off in November, taking four people up in orbit.

Come the spring of next year, another four will go up there as part of an international crew announced since August. In the the fall of 2021, four more will fly on board the Crew Dragon. Their names were revealed earlier this month by NASA.

The team comprises NASA astronauts Raja Chari and Tom Marshburn, and ESA astronaut Matthias Maurer, acting as mission specialist; a fourth member is to be announced at a later date. Except for Marshburn, the other two are at their first trips to space.

Like most others before them, the astronauts will spend half a year on the station, continuing the experiments started by their colleagues.

Having witnessed the success of the Crew Dragon, the world is looking forward to Boeing’s Starliner doing the same thing, following the problems it faced during the first uncrewed test flight. Those led to a failure to dock with the ISS.

These two spaceships are meant to take people to orbit, and that’s about it. It will be Lockheed Martin's Orion capsule of the Artemis program that will open other planets to us, humans.

In an announcement made in September last year, NASA said it needs 12 spacecraft for Artemis. The first three, including the ones for the crewed missions to the Moon, are expected to cost $2.7 billion.
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About the author: Daniel Patrascu
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Daniel loves writing (or so he claims), and he uses this skill to offer readers a "behind the scenes" look at the automotive industry. He also enjoys talking about space exploration and robots, because in his view the only way forward for humanity is away from this planet, in metal bodies.
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