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SpaceX launches four astronauts to International Space Station

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Reuters

NASA and Elon Musk's commercial rocket company SpaceX launched a new four-astronaut team on a flight to the International Space Station on Friday, the first crew ever propelled into orbit by a rocket booster recycled from a previous spaceflight.

The company's Crew Dragon capsule, Endeavour, streaked into the darkened pre-dawn sky atop a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket as its nine Merlin engines roared to life at 5:49 a.m. (0949 GMT) from NASA's Kennedy Space Center at Cape Canaveral, Florida. The blastoff was aired live on NASA TV.

The crew is due to arrive at the space station, which orbits some 250 miles (400 km) above Earth, early on Saturday following a flight of about 23 hours.

 

Within 10 minutes of launch, the rocket's second stage had delivered the crew capsule to Earth orbit, traveling at nearly 17,000 miles per hour, according to launch commentators.

The rocket's first stage, meanwhile, descended back to Earth and touched down safely on a landing platform floating in the Atlantic on a drone ship affectionately named Of Course I Still Love You.

The mission marks the second "operational" space station team to be launched by NASA aboard a Dragon Crew capsule since the United States resumed flying astronauts into space from U.S. soil last year, following a nine-year hiatus at the end of the U.S. space shuttle program in 2011.

It is also the third crewed flight launched into orbit under NASA's fledgling public-private partnership with SpaceX, the rocket company founded and owned by Musk, the billionaire entrepreneur who is also CEO of electric carmarker Tesla Inc.

The first was an out-and-back test mission carrying just two astronauts into orbit last May, followed by SpaceX's first full-fledged four-member crew in November.

Friday's Crew 2 team consists of two NASA astronauts - mission commander Shane Kimbrough, 53, and pilot Megan McArthur, 49 - along with Japanese astronaut Akihiko Hoshide, 52, and fellow mission specialist Thomas Pesquet, 43, a French engineer from the European Space Agency.

The four helmeted crew members, dressed in their white flight suits and black boots, were briefly glimpsed seated side by side in the capsule just after reaching orbit in a video clip captured by an onboard camera.

They are expected to spend about six months aboard the orbiting research platform conducting science experiments and maintenance before returning to Earth.

The four members of Crew 1, sent to the space station in November, are slated to fly home on April 28.

The Crew 2 mission made a bit of spaceflight history due to the fact that its Falcon 9 rocket blasted off with the same first-stage booster that lofted Crew 1 into orbit five months ago, marking the first time a previously flown booster has ever been re-used in a crewed launch.

Reusable booster vehicles, designed to fly themselves back to Earth and land safely once they separate from the rest of the rocket minutes after launch, are at the heart of a re-usable rocket strategy that SpaceX helped pioneer to make spaceflight more economical.

SpaceX has logged dozens of successful Falcon 9 booster return landings, and the company has refurbished and re-used most of them, some for multiple flights. But all of those flights, until Friday's mission, only carried cargo.

Crew 2's pilot, McArthur, made a bit of history herself as the first female pilot of the Crew Dragon and the second person from her family to ride aboard the SpaceX capsule. She is married to NASA astronaut Bob Behnken, who flew the SpaceX demonstration flight with fellow astronaut Doug Hurley last year. The same Crew Dragon was used for that flight as well.

If all goes well, McArthur and her three crewmates will be welcomed aboard the space station Saturday by the four Crew 1 astronauts - three from NASA and one from the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency JAXA. Two Russian cosmonauts and a U.S. astronaut who shared a Soyuz flight to the space station are also aboard.

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Eight Afghan migrants die as boat capsizes off Greek island

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Eight Afghan migrants died after a speedboat carrying migrants capsized off Greece's eastern island of Rhodes on Friday, the Associated Press reported.

Greek authorities said that the capsizing was the result of the boat’s maneuvering to evade a patrol vessel.

A total of 18 migrants — 12 men, three women and three minors — all Afghan nationals, were rescued, Greece's coast guard said Saturday. The dead were also from Afghanistan, it said.

Some migrants remained hospitalized, with one in critical condition, authorities said.

Two Turkish citizens, ages 23 and 19, were arrested as the suspected traffickers. The boat sank after capsizing, the coast guard said.

The sinking off Rhodes was the second deadly incident involving migrants in the past week.

Seven migrants were killed and dozens were believed missing after a boat partially sank south of the island of Crete over the weekend — one of four rescue operations during which more than 200 migrants were rescued.

 

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Norwegian Chargé d’Affaires meets with IEA deputy foreign minister

Welcoming the diplomat’s visit to Kabul, Stanikzai underscored the importance of political relations between Afghanistan and Norway, the foreign ministry said in a statement.

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The Norwegian Chargé d’Affaires for Afghanistan, Per Albert Ilsaas, on Saturday met with IEA’s Deputy Foreign Minister for Political Affairs, Sher Muhammad Abbas Stanikzai, in Kabul.

Welcoming the diplomat’s visit to Kabul, Stanikzai underscored the importance of political relations between Afghanistan and Norway, the foreign ministry said in a statement.

In addition to focusing on bilateral political, humanitarian, and other pertinent issues, the two sides expressed hope that continued engagement would lead to constructive solutions to related issues.

This comes two weeks after the Foreign Ministry Spokesman Abdul Qahar Balkhi expressed disappointment regarding the decision by the Norwegian government to downgrade diplomatic relations with Afghanistan.

Balkhi said in a post on X that such decisions should not be linked with internal affairs of other countries.

“Diplomatic engagement is most effective when it fosters mutual understanding and respect, even amidst differing viewpoints,” he stated.

“Access to consular services is a fundamental right of all nationals. We strongly urge all parties to prioritize this principle in the spirit of international cooperation,” he added.

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A new polio vaccination campaign is set to launch in Afghanistan

Afghanistan and Pakistan are the only two countries in the world where polio has not been eradicated.

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The “Afghanistan Polio-Free” organization announced that a new round of polio vaccinations will begin on Monday, December 23, in various provinces of Afghanistan.

The organization did not specify which provinces will be targeted or how long the vaccination campaign will last.

Afghanistan and Pakistan are the only two countries in the world where polio has not been eradicated.

On December 4, 2023, the World Health Organization (WHO) issued a statement reporting a 283% increase in polio cases in Afghanistan. According to the WHO, the number of positive environmental samples for wild poliovirus type 1 in Afghanistan in 2024 reached 84, compared to 62 cases in 2023.

The Ministry of Public Health claimed in November 2024 that no new cases of polio had been reported in Afghanistan for the year.

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