What do you get when you fold together the ambitions and contributions of four space station-bound astronauts from the United States, Japan and Russia? A zero-g indicator in the form of an origami crane.
Minutes after arriving in Earth orbit on Friday (March 14), the members of Crew-10 — SpaceX’s 10th operational mission to the International Space Station (ISS) under NASA’s commercial crew program — revealed their choice for the traditional plush toy used to signal they entered the microgravity environment of outer space. Mission specialist Takuya Onishi of the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) held out the bird to float, while commander Anne McClain of NASA introduced it to the world.
“This is a hand-crocheted origami crane. His name is ‘Droog,’ which is the Russian name for friend,” said McClain.
“Origami is the Japanese art of folding paper,” she said in a live broadcast to the ground. “This is a nod to the unique and deep cultural traditions from which each of us come. While all from different parts of the world, we are brought together in this bold endeavor, and we represent all of humanity.”
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Flying with McClain and Onishi are NASA astronaut Nichole Ayers, Crew-10 pilot, and mission specialist Kirill Peskov with the Russian federal space corporation Roscosmos. They launched together on board SpaceX’s Crew Dragon spacecraft “Endurance” atop a Falcon 9 rocket from Complex 39A at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida at 7:03 p.m. EDT (2303 GMT).
Endurance is scheduled to dock to the forward port of the Harmony module at about 11:30 p.m. EDT on Saturday (March 15; 0330 GMT on Sunday, March 16). Aboard the station, they will briefly serve on the Expedition 72 crew before transitioning to Expedition 73, after conducting a hand-off with the members of Crew-9 before the latter returns home to Earth as early as Wednesday (March 19), weather permitting.
Crew-10 is the first space mission in history where both the commander and…
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