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Actually, he should have become the twelfth German in space long ago. But the German astronaut Matthias Maurer has to be patient.
Cape Canaveral – The German astronaut Matthias Maurer can now leave for the International Space Station ISS at the earliest Thursday morning (Wednesday local time).
First, a crew of four astronauts should be brought back to earth from the ISS at the weekend, announced the US space agency Nasa. According to this, the earliest possible start date for Maurer and his three NASA colleagues is on Thursday at 3:03 a.m. German time (Wednesday at 9:03 p.m. local time). This would allow them to arrive at the ISS on Friday at 1:10 a.m.CET.
For the first time in three years, a German astronaut is supposed to fly into space with Maurer. Together with NASA colleagues Thomas Marshburn, Raja Chari and Kayla Barron, he is to take off from the Cape Canaveral spaceport in Florida to the ISS space station. The four astronauts are to be transported by a “Crew Dragon” from Elon Musk’s private space company SpaceX.
With the flight, Maurer would be the twelfth German in space, the fourth on the ISS and the first to be flown there with a “Crew Dragon”. On the ISS, the astronaut of the European Space Agency (ESA) will carry out numerous experiments for about six months at an altitude of around 400 kilometers and will probably also complete an outdoor mission. The last time a German Esa astronaut was in space was Alexander Gerst in 2018.
The start of the 51-year-old Saarland native, originally planned for the last weekend in October, had already been postponed several times – among other things due to bad weather and a “minor medical problem” of a crew member. The medical problem will continue to be observed, Nasa had recently announced. It is expected that this will be fine again before the planned start. There was no further information on this.
Most recently, Monday was mentioned as the earliest possible start date. For this date, however, there had been concerns about the weather. The main concerns were strong winds in Cape Canaveral and poor weather conditions in the further course of the flight.
Nasa now gave the return of the so-called “Crew-2” priority. These are the French Esa astronaut Thomas Pesquet, the NASA astronauts Shane Kimbrough and Megan McArthur and the Japanese astronaut Akihiko Hoshide, who have been on the ISS since April – on Friday it was exactly 196 days. Since the “Crew Dragon”, with which “Crew-2” is currently at the ISS, can officially only stay in space for up to 210 days, the return of the four astronauts became more urgent with each passing day.
The “Crew-2” should now – with around 250 kilograms of scientific experiments in their luggage – undock from the ISS at the earliest on Sunday, then fly around the space station to take photos for possible upcoming repairs, and arrive in the sea off Florida on Monday . The weather was still observed, there was another undocking possibility for Monday.
A handover between “Crew-2” and “Crew-3” on board the ISS was actually planned. Nasa astronaut Kimbrough said at a press conference from space on Friday that this is now failing. The task will now be taken over by NASA astronaut Mark Vande Hei, who came to the ISS in April together with cosmonauts Oleg Nowizki and Pyotr Dubrow. French astronaut Pesquet said at the press conference that he was not nervous before the return flight.
The “Crew Dragon” with which the “Crew-2” is at the ISS, however, has a problem: the toilet is broken. The four astronauts therefore each have to fly back to earth wearing a type of diaper. This is of course “suboptimal,” said astronaut McArthur. “But there are many small challenges in space travel and we are ready to get a grip on that.” Dpa
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