Cal Poly grad Victor Glover reaches space station for history-making stay
Late Monday night, a Cal Poly grad and four other astronauts successfully boarded the International Space Station after a 27-hour journey from Earth.
Victor Glover, a 1999 general engineering graduate of Cal Poly, piloted SpaceX’s Crew-1 Dragon capsule to the ISS alongside NASA astronauts Mike Hopkins and Shannon Walker, and Japanese astronaut Soichi Noguchi.
Glover, 44, made history as the first Black crew member aboard the ISS for an extended stay. Those who preceded him stayed only briefly aboard the space station.
When the crew entered the space station, they were greeted by hugs and applause from the other crew members already onboard: NASA astronaut Kate Rubins and Russian cosmonauts Sergey Ryxhikov and Sergey Kud-Sverchkov.
Meanwhile, at the Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida, applause broke out once the launch crew on the ground received word that the astronauts had successfully docked and were preparing to board.
The capsule arrived at the ISS at 8:01 p.m. Pacific Standard Time, after launching Cape Canaveral at 7:27 p.m. Sunday.
Once docked, it then took the crew a little over two hours to change out of their space suits and configure the hatch to ensure a safe entry onto the ISS.
“It was an amazing ride,” said Hopkins in a post-arrival news conference. “I can’t tell you how excited we were when that rocket lifted off the pad, and then the last 27 hours has gone really smooth.”
The launched marked the first operational crew rotation mission from Earth to the ISS from U.S. soil since 2011. It is also NASA’s second manned launch since 2011, following the SpaceX flight in May.
The crew will spend the next 197 days aboard the space station, conducting research and scientific experiments such as growing radishes to better understand plant growth and nutrition in microgravity; conducting cancer therapy research; studying how mining with microbes might be used on asteroids and continuing research into the effects of microgravity on the human heart.
This story was originally published November 17, 2020 at 11:36 AM.
