27/08/2023
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Piloting the Dragon
Crew-7 with its four astronauts launched on top a Falcon 9 rocket from NASA’s Kennedy Space Centre in Florida, US at 09:27 CEST on 26 August. Andreas was the pilot on the Crew Dragon, ensuring the spacecraft’s performance and systems as they made their way to the Space Station. This was the first time a European astronaut piloted the Crew Dragon.
After 30 hours, they arrived at Earth’s orbiting laboratory and docked on the International Space Station.
Awaiting to welcome Crew-7 on the Space Station was Frank Rubio, Sergey Prokopyev and Dmitry Petelin, who arrived on a Soyuz rocket in September 2022, as well as Stephen Bowen, Warren Hoburg, Sultan Al Neyadi and Andrey Fedyaev of Crew-6.
Ready to gather knowledge
With Andreas onboard, the Huginn mission has started. A mission where Andreas will make the Space Station his workplace and home for the next six months. He will conduct more than 30 European experiments and technology demonstrations, ranging from climate and health to space research for humankind on Earth.
Around mid-September as Expedition 69 ends and 70 begin, Andreas will become the Space Station commander taking over from the current commander Sergey Prokopyev. Andreas will remain commander for the rest of his Huginn mission, which will amount to a little over five months, the longest for a European astronaut.
Follow the Huginn mission
Andreas will share his mission from orbit via his Facebook , Twitter, and Instagram. You can learn more about the Huginn mission, including the science that Andreas will perform, on the ESA’s Huginn page.