Houston-based Axiom Space launched its fourth crewed mission to the International Space Station (ISS) early Wednesday (June 25), lifting off on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from NASA's Kennedy Space Center (KCS), in Florida. The mission lifted off from KSC's Launch Complex-39A at 2:31 a.m. EDT (0631 GMT).
After a particularly long orbital chase — 28 hours between launch and rendezvous — the crew's Dragon spacecraft docked with the space station Thursday morning, at 6:31 a.m. (1031 GMT).
The Ax-4 astronauts rode a brand-new SpaceX crew Dragon to orbit. As such, naming rights for the spacecraft fell to the crew, who revealed their choice shortly after launch. Their pick: Grace.
Aboard Crew Dragon Grace is former NASA astronaut and Axiom's director of human spaceflight Peggy Whitson. Whitson holds the record for cumulative days spent in space by an American. That number began climbing again following her launch Wednesday, and is counting upward from 675. Her record will reach just shy of 700 days by the time the two-week Ax-4 mission returns to Earth.
Source: www.space.com
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