[ad_1]
On November 2, 20 years have passed since the first long-term astronaut mission to the International Space Station, a mission known as “Expedition 1”. Since then, there have always been a few people who have lived and worked at SSI.
Prior to this mission, most of NASA’s human spaceflight program in the United States focused on launching orbit, which lasted several weeks.
But in the mid-1990s, the US space agency launched astronauts into space for much longer trips to live on the former Russian Mir space station.
After the United States, Russia and their international partners formed the International Space Station, the United States Space Agency launched astronauts that remained in orbit for months in the early 2000s and have been permanent people ever since. on the SSI.
During Expedition 1, a crew of three astronauts was launched on the ISS on October 31, 2000, aboard a Russian Soyuz rocket. This flight carried two Russian cosmonauts – Yuri Gidzenko and Sergei Krikalev – and American astronaut Bill Shepherd.
They docked at SSI two days later, on November 2nd. The three men remained on the International Space Station for four and a half months, until March.
They left SSI after a new crew of three landed aboard the Discovery spacecraft. Their mission was called Expedition 2.
The US space agency celebrated its first mission to the ISS with press events, with statements from astronauts now aboard the International Space Station (Expedition 64), but also with a virtual round table with members of Expedition 1.
[ad_2]
Source link
