At The Cape 36A launch pad in Florida, a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket carried four astronauts and the Liberty Dragon spacecraft to the International Space Station. The four astronauts who flew the Crew4 mission included three NASA astronauts and an Italian female astronaut: Commander Shel Lindgren (second flight), pilot Robert Hines (first flight), mission specialist Thurmansa Christopher Fretti (second flight), and mission specialist Jessica Watkins (first flight). The Falcon 9 rocket used this time, numbered B1067-4, is an old rocket that has been launched four times. About nine minutes after launch, the rocket successfully returned to land on a maritime recovery ship in the Atlantic Ocean and became a "five-handed rocket".
The first stage of the Falcon 9 rocket successfully completed its recovery on the Atlantic Sea Recovery Ship 9 minutes after launch, which was its fifth flight.
Dr. Cher Lindgren, a certified emergency physician and former flight surgeon, is his second trip to the International Space Station, where he was appointed commander for the mission after 141 days in orbit on the International Space Station in 2015. On his last expedition, he conducted two spacewalks and was involved in more than 100 scientific projects, including the Space Vegetable Experiment, which marked the first time a U.S. crew member had eaten a crop grown in orbit.
Watkins, a black woman, was a NASA astronaut candidate for 2017. She is a professional in the field of geology and holds a B.S. in Geology and Environmental Science from Stanford University and a Ph.D. in Geology from the University of California, Los Angeles. As an undergraduate, she conducted research on Martian soil at NASA's Ames Research Center, which helped complete the Phoenix Mars rover mission, and as a graduate student, she also participated in research at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory. In addition, she was the chief geologist of NASA's Mars Desert Research Station Simulation Mission and a member of NASA's Desert Research and Technology Research Simulation Mission.
After becoming a crew member of crew Crew 4, Watkins will be the first African-American woman to perform a long-term mission aboard the International Space Station. Since the is built more than 20 years ago, only 7 other black astronauts have boarded the INTERNATIONAL Space Station, and she will set a precedent.
Italian female cosmonaut Semansa CristoFredi was inducted as an ESA astronaut in May 2009, having been stationed in space for 200 days and demonstrating her command capabilities in NASA's NEEMO23 mission. In 2001, Cristo Fretti joined the Italian Air Force and entered the Air Force Officer School as an officer candidate. It is worth mentioning that she came to China in 2017 to participate in a maritime lifesaving training in Yantai, Shandong Province, with ESA astronaut Matthias Maurer.
The four astronauts will stay on the International Space Station for 6 months, conducting more than 200 experiments. Starting in 2020, SpaceX launched its first astronauts to the International Space Station with the Crew Dragon spacecraft, and has been steadily carrying out NASA's mission to transport astronauts to the International Space Station ever since. A few days earlier, due to the poor sea conditions of the Axiom 1 mission operated by SpaceX, the return to The Florida waters was delayed by 7 days, resulting in the postponement of the Crew4 launch mission.
Source: Sina Technology