SpaceX’s fourth Crew Dragon mission to be led by NASA astronauts Kjell Lindgren, Bob Hines- Technology News, Firstpost

FP TrendingFeb 15, 2021 14:58:26 IST

NASA has selected astronauts for its fourth SpaceX Crew mission. The two crew members will be boarding the fourth crew rotation flight of the Crew Dragon spacecraft to travel to the International Space Station. The space agency has named American astronauts Kjell Lindgren and Bob Hines as crew members of the SpaceX Crew-4 mission. Lindgren will serve as the spacecraft commander and Bob Hines will be the pilot on the mission. The astronaut duo are the primary members. Additional crew in the designation of mission specialists will be selected in the coming months.

According to NASA, the mission is expected to launch in 2022. As employed in the previous Crew missions, a Falcon 9 rocket will take the spacecraft from Launch Complex 39A at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida. The team, consisting of Lindgren, Hines and other international crew members are going to join an expedition crew already aboard the space station and they are going to stay there for a long duration.

Lindgren has been to space before, having stayed at the space station for 141 days in 2015 for Expeditions 44 and 45.  Hines, on the other hand, will be making his first trip to space as part of the fourth crew rotation flight mission.

NASA has been a part of the Commercial Crew Program where it works with companies like SpaceX to “develop and operate a new generation of spacecraft and launch systems capable of carrying crews to low-Earth orbit and the space station”.

Earlier, NASA had announced that the upcoming Crew-2 mission will be leaving for the International Space Station not earlier than 20 April. NASA astronauts Shane Kimbrough and Megan McArthur will serve as the spacecraft commander and pilot for this second mission, and JAXA astronaut Akihiko Hoshide along with ESA astronaut Thomas Pesquet will be the mission specialists.