The National Aeronautics and Space Administration said on Sunday that the crew of Elon Musk ‘s Dragon of SpaceX spacecraft are all set to break the record for most days in space.
Four flight engineers, Michael Hopkins, Victor Glover, Shannon Walker and Soichi Noguchi, flew the SpaceX Crew Dragon spacecraft to a U.S. model last November. “They will surpass the 84-day record set by the Skylab 4 team on February 8, 1974,” NASA said.
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The Skylab 4 crew, with NASA astronauts Gerald Carr, Edward Gibson and William Pogue, flew their Apollo spacecraft to the 47-year-old Skylab space station to date when the SpaceX crew docked to the orbiting laboratory, according to the U.S. space authority.
Meanwhile, NASA has selected private aerospace company Elon Musk, SpaceX, to launch launch services for an astronaut mission to study the skies in near-infrared light.
SPHEREx is the name of the designed, short two-year resolution for Spectro-Photometer for Earth History, Epoch of Reionization, and Ices Explorer.
The near-infrared light, which, although invisible to the human eye, is a powerful tool for answering cosmic questions including the birth of the universe, and the subsequent development of galaxies. that is, according to NASA.
SPHEREx also detects water and organic molecules – essential for life as we know it – in regions where stars are born from gas and dust, known as stellar nurseries, as well as discs around stars. where new planets could be forming, the U.S. space agency said this week.
The mission is currently aiming to launch as early as June 2024 on a Falcon 9 rocket from Space Launch Complex-4E at the Vandenberg Air Force Base in California.
Astronomers will use the mission to collect data on more than 300 million galaxies, as well as more than 100 million stars in our very own Milky Way galaxy.
The total cost for NASA to launch SPHEREx is approximately $ 98.8 million, which includes the launch service and other mission-related costs.