Creating history in space exploration the total human population in space went up to a record high with four civilians reaching the orbit around the earth onboard the Space X – Inspiration4 mission. For a period few hours on 16th September there were 14 humans orbiting the earth in 3 different space crafts. In International Space Station there are 7 astronauts and in the core module of the Chinese Space Station which is being built there were 3 astronauts and they returned to earth today completing a 3 month long mission. Yesterday another crew of four reached the orbit onboard the inspiration 4 mission increasing the total number to 14. This will go down the history as the highest number of people in space in a any given time. The previous record for the highest number of astronauts in space at the same time is 13 that we witnessed several times, and the last time was in 2009 where there were 13 astronauts in the ISS for a brief period of time.
Inspiration 4, the Space X Mission that Created History
On 16th September the Falcon 9 rocket began its journey for one more time lifting an all civilian crew of four onboard their Crew Dragon Spacecraft. This mission also goes down to the history books as the first space flight with an all civilian crew. According to the SpaceX website, Inspiration4 mission is commanded by Jared Isaacman, founder and CEO of Shift4 Payments and an accomplished pilot and adventurer. Joining him are Medical Officer Hayley Arceneaux, a physician assistant at St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital® and pediatric cancer survivor; Mission Specialist Chris Sembroski, an Air Force veteran and aerospace data engineer; and Mission Pilot Dr. Sian Proctor, a geoscientist, entrepreneur, and trained pilot.
The Crew Dragon is now in an orbit of 575 km above the earth which is much higher orbit than the ISS or the Hubble space telescope.
Tianhe: The Chinese “Harmony of the Heavens”
On April 29th this year China launched the core module of their Space Station Tianhe to a low earth orbit between 340 and 450 km. This Space station will be the third space station built by China, earlier China used Tiangong-1 and Tiangong-2 space stations and the knowledge and experience gained through those earlier stations is used in Tianhe station.
As the first crewed mission to their new Space Station Shenzhou 12 launched on June 16 carrying Nie Haisheng, Liu Boming and Tang Hongbo to the core module of Tianhe. The three men crew completed their 3 month long mission onboard the Tianhe and returned to earth few hours ago touching down in the Gobi Desert in Inner Mongolia. Next year China will launch two more modules to complete the space station which will be roughly one fifth of the International Space Station in size.
ISS 20 years in Space and Counting
The Expedition 65 crew of the International Space Station with 7 astronauts is currently engaged in day-today experiments and other operations onboard the ISS. NASA astronauts Shane Kimbrough, Megan McArthur and Mark Vande Hei; Russian cosmonauts Pyotr Dubrov and Oleg Novitskiy; Japan’s Akihiko Hoshide; and the European Space Agency’s Thomas Pesquet are the astronauts taking part in this expedition. The International Space station has now completed 20 years in space and 240 individuals representing 19 countries have visited the station and have carried out more than 3000 scientific investigations with the participation of more than 4000 researchers representing over 100 countries during this 20 year period.
Exiting period ahead in human space exploration, and more records are to be broken
With the Chinese Space Station joining the ISS in low earth orbit, and companies like Space X, Blue Origin and Virgin galactic creating their own pathways in commercial space flights, the next few years are going to be a busy period for human space exploration. And we will be able to see many new records being made in human space exploration.
Featured image – Space X Falcon 9 rocket starts another space trip with a payload. (Image credit – SpaceX flickr )
