SpaceX's Crew Dragon Endeavor capsule, with four astronauts on board, docked at the International Space Station on Saturday, according to images broadcast live by NASA TV.
A new success for the company founded by Elon Musk which consolidates its position in human space flights.
This is the third time that private company SpaceX, which ended Russia's monopoly on flights to the station, has brought humans to the ISS. The Endeavor began its docking maneuvers at 09:08 GMT, 424 kilometers above the Indian Ocean, a process completed about ten minutes later, with a mechanism locking by a series of 12 latches the docking between the ISS and the spacecraft, according to live footage from NASA television.
"Hard Capture over, welcome to Crew-2," said US astronaut Shannon Walker, current ISS commander.
"Thank you Shannon, we are happy to be here, we will see you all in a few minutes," replied Endeavor commander, US astronaut Shane Kimbrough.
The four members of the Crew-2 mission are expected to disembark around 07:15 (11:15 GMT).
Successful takeoff with a reused spaceship
Liftoff took place at dawn at the Kennedy Space Center on Friday, taking the four members of the Crew-2 mission into space: Frenchman Thomas Pesquet for the European Space Agency (ESA), Americans Shane Kimbrough and Megan McArthur and the Japanese Akihiko Hoshide.
This performance is another success for the private company SpaceX, which has imposed itself on NASA for space transport, at a time when Boeing's Starliner capsule is accumulating delays in its test flights. With the success in May 2020 of its first manned test flight, Elon Musk's private company SpaceX broke the Russian monopoly on flights to the ISS and gave the Americans back the ability to accomplish this feat, after the end of the “Shuttle” space shuttles in 2011.
This is the first time that a spacecraft has been reused for manned flight and the thruster has already been used on an unmanned test mission.
Reducing costs by recycling equipment is one of the objectives of NASA's partnerships with the private sector.
Two Crew Dragon spacecraft are now stationed side-by-side at the ISS, illustrating how SpaceX has become the primary transportation provider for the US space agency.
"I think we are on the cusp of a new era of space exploration," billionaire Elon Musk, who plans to bring humans to the moon one day, said at a post-launch press conference. and Mars.
Eleven occupants on the ISS
With the arrival of four astronauts, the International Space Station will be unusually populated, with eleven occupants.
The four newcomers will meet the Crew-1 team for a few days before the latter returns from its mission.
The mission is also a milestone for Europe, which named it "Alpha" after the Alpha Centauri star system, the closest star system to our solar system.
"This is really the golden age for us in terms of operating the International Space Station," Frank De Winne, head of the ISS program at the European Space Agency (ESA), told AFP.
German Matthias Maurer will be the next European to be part of a SpaceX mission this fall, followed by Italian Samantha Cristoforetti next spring.
During its six-month mission, the team will be responsible for carrying out around 100 scientific experiments.
They will focus on what are called "tissue chips" - small models of human organs made up of different types of cells and used to study the aging of the immune system, kidney function and muscle loss, among other things.
The crew will also take 1.5 million images of Earth, documenting phenomena such as artificial lighting at night, algal blooms and the bursting of Antarctic ice shelves.
Another important part of the mission was to upgrade the station's solar power system by installing new compact panels that roll out like a huge yoga mat.
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