A non-American pilot

The Crew Dragon " Endurance " spacecraft (Crew 7 mission) lifted off at 7:27 UTC on August 26 from the Kennedy Space Center, Florida.

On board were four astronauts of four different nationalities : American Jasmin Moghbeli, Dane Andreas Mogensen, Japanese Satoshi Furukawa and Russian Konstantin Borissov.

This was the first time a foreign astronaut had been entrusted with piloting SpaceX's Crew Dragon.

Tenth mission to the ISS

The launch on August 27 marked SpaceX's fifty-ninth orbital achievement so far this year, and the fourth to the International Space Station.

It was also the tenth crew sent to the ISS in the space of three years by SpaceX, which remains the only private operator able to honor Nasa's CCP (Commercial Crew Program) - the first manned flight of Boeing's CST 100 Starliner spacecraft is no longer expected until... March 2024, according to an official announcement dated August 7.

Again eleven passengers on board

After a flight of just under 30 hours, the Endurance spacecraft docked safely to the Harmony module of the ISS, where since March 28 March, the Expedition 69, with seven astronauts and cosmonauts, passengers in the Soyuz MS 23 and Crew 6 capsules.

The former will return on September 27, two weeks after the latter.

Europe's longest command

In mid-September, when Expedition 70 begins with the arrival of Soyuz MS 24 (occupied by Russians Oleg Kononenko and Nikolai Choub, and American Loral O'Hara), Andreas Mogensen will become the station's commander (Europe's sixth).

His command will last until the eve of Crew 7's return to Earth in February 2024, i.e. just over five months : a record for a European astronaut.

Mission Huginn

Astronaut with the European Space Agency since 2009, Andreas Mogensen was the only one in his class to have completed only one long-duration flight (mission IrISS, September 2-12 2015).

During his new stay, christened Huginn by ESA (in reference to one of the two accomplice ravens of the god Odin, in Norse mythology), he will conduct more than 30 European scientific experiments and technological demonstrations.