CAPE CANAVERAL, Florida: Four astronauts headed to Kennedy Space Center on Sunday for SpaceX’s second crew launch, coming up next weekend.
For NASA, it marks the long-awaited start of regular crew rotations at the International Space Station, with private companies providing the lifts. There will be double the number of astronauts as the test flight earlier this year, and their mission will last a full six months.
The crew of three Americans and one Japanese are scheduled to rocket away Saturday night. It will be a speedy trip to the space station, a six-orbit express lasting under nine hours.
The astronauts have named their Dragon capsule Resilience given all the challenges of 2020: coronavirus and social isolation, civil unrest and a particularly difficult election and campaign season. They have been in quarantine for a week and taking safety precautions — masks and social distancing — long before that.
The four will remain in orbit until spring, when their replacements arrive aboard another SpaceX Dragon capsule. The cargo version of the capsule also will keep making regular deliveries of food and supplies.
SpaceX’s Benji Reed said the company expects to launch seven Dragons over the next 14 months: three for crew and four for cargo.
“Every time there’s a Dragon launch, there will be two Dragons in space,” said Reed, director of crew mission management.
NASA’s other hired taxi service, meanwhile, Boeing, isn’t expected to fly its first crew until next summer. The company plans a second unpiloted test flight in a couple months; the first one suffered so many software problems that the Starliner capsule failed to reach the space station.
NASA turned to private companies for space station deliveries — cargo, then crew — following the shuttle fleet’s retirement in 2011. US astronauts kept hitching rides on Russian rockets at increasingly steep prices. The last Soyuz ticket cost NASA $90 million.
SpaceX finally ended NASA’s nearly decade-long launch drought for astronauts last May, successfully delivering a pair of test pilots to the space station from Kennedy for a two-month stay. The returning capsule was scrutinized by SpaceX following its splashdown, resulting in a few changes for this second flight.
Engineers discovered excessive erosion in the heat shield from the searing reentry temperatures; the company shored up the vulnerable section for the upcoming launch, said SpaceX’s Hans Koenigsmann, a vice president. Improvements also were made to the altitude-measuring system for the parachutes, after the chutes opened a little too low on the first astronaut flight. More recently, the Falcon rocket had two engines replaced because of contamination from a red lacquer used in processing. The engine swaps delayed the flight two weeks.
Perhaps the biggest surprise from the first SpaceX crew flight was all the private boats full of gawkers who surrounded the capsule in the Gulf of Mexico following splashdown in August. Koenigsmann promises a bigger keep-out zone and more patrols for future returns.
The second crew has three veteran fliers and one first-timer:
— Commander Mike Hopkins, 51, is an Air Force colonel and former space station resident who grew up on a hog and cattle farm in Missouri.
— Navy Cmdr. Victor Glover, 44, is the pilot and the lone space rookie; he’s from the Los Angeles area and will be the first African-American astronaut to move into the space station for a long stay.
— Shannon Walker, 55, a Houston-born-and-raised physicist, also has lived before on the space station; her husband, retired astronaut Andrew Thomas, helped build the outpost.
— The Japanese Space Agency’s Soichi Noguchi, 55, another former station resident, will become the first person in decades to launch on three kinds of rocketships; he’s already flown on a US space shuttle and Russian Soyuz.
They will join two Russians and one American who arrived at the space station last month from Kazakhstan.
Hopkins and his crew will ride to the launch pad in Teslas — SpaceX founder Elon Musk’s other company — in spacesuits color-coordinated with the spacecraft. But beneath all the good looks is “lots of amazing capability,” according to Glover.
“It’s a very sleek capsule. But it’s got the advantage of having great leaps in technology since the last time we built spacecraft here in this country,” Walker said in a recent interview with The Associated Press.
Noguchi, who along with Walker joined the crew just this year, is particularly excited about riding a Dragon. In Japan, the dragon is an esteemed mythical creature — “almost a ride to the heaven.”
“It’s quite a privilege to learn how to train the Dragon actually, how to ride a Dragon,” he said. “SpaceX did pretty good job teaching from scratch to dragon rider in six months.”
Astronauts head to launch site for SpaceX’s 2nd crew flight
https://arab.news/9z5yq
Astronauts head to launch site for SpaceX’s 2nd crew flight
Rohingya refugees hope new leaders can pave a path home
- Some 1.7 million Rohingya Muslims displaced in Myanmar's military crackdown live in squalid camps in Cox’s Bazar, Bangladesh
COX’S BAZAR, Bangladesh: Rohingya refugees living in squalid camps in Bangladesh have elected a leadership council, hoping it can improve conditions and revive efforts to secure their return home to Myanmar.
Spread over 8,000 acres in Cox’s Bazar in Bangladesh, the camps are home to 1.7 million members of the stateless group, many of whom fled a 2017 military crackdown that is now subject to a genocide probe at the UN court.
In July, the refugees held their first elections since their influx began eight years ago, resulting in the formation of the United Council of Rohang (UCR).
“They are working to take us home,” said Khairul Islam, 37, who back home had a thriving timber business.
The new council has brought him a glimmer of hope amid an uncertain future.
“We can hardly breathe in these cramped camp rooms... all our family members live in a single room,” he said.
“It’s unbearably hot inside. Back in Myanmar, we didn’t even need a ceiling fan. In summer, we used to sit under tall trees,” Islam said, his eyes welling up.
More than 3,000 voters from across 33 refugee camps cast their ballots to elect an executive committee and five rotating presidents to focus on human rights, education and health.
Addressing a gathering at one of the camps, UCR president Mohammad Sayed Ullah urged refugees not to forget the violence that forced the mostly Muslim group to flee Myanmar’s Rakhine state.
“Never forget that we left our parents’ graves behind. Our women died on the way here. They were tortured and killed... and some drowned at sea,” said Sayed Ullah, dressed in a white full-sleeved shirt and lungi.
“We must prepare ourselves to return home,” he said, prompting members of the audience to nod in agreement.
A seat at the table
“UCR wants to emerge as the voice of the Rohingyas on the negotiation table,” Sayed Ullah later told AFP.
“It’s about us, yet we were nowhere as stakeholders.”
The council is not the first attempt to organize Rohingya refugees.
Several groups emerged after 2017, including the Arakan Rohingya Society for Peace and Human Rights, once led by prominent activist Mohib Ullah.
But he was murdered in 2021.
And even before that, many organizations were shut down after a major 2019 rally, when the Rohingya said they would go home only with full rights and safety guarantees.
“Some newspapers misrepresented us, claiming we wanted to stay permanently in Bangladesh,” Sayed Ullah said.
“Many organizers were detained. The hardest blow was the assassination of Mohib Ullah.”
But trust is slowly building up again among the Rohingya crammed in the camps in Cox’s Bazar.
“Of course we will return home,” said 18-year-old Mosharraf, who fled the town of Buthidaung with his family.
“UCR will negotiate for better education. If we are better educated, we can build global consensus for our return,” he told AFP.
Security threats
Many refugees have started approaching the body with complaints against local Rohingya leaders, reflecting a slow but noticeable shift in attitudes.
On a recent sunny morning, an AFP reporter saw more than a dozen Rohingya waiting outside the UCR office with complaints.
Some said they were tortured while others reported losing small amounts of gold they had carried while fleeing their homes.
Analysts say it remains unclear whether the new council can genuinely represent the Rohingya or if it ultimately serves the interests of Bangladeshi authorities.
“The UCR ‘elections’ appear to have been closely controlled by the authorities,” said Thomas Kean, senior consultant at the International Crisis Group.
Security threats also loom large, undermining efforts to forge political dialogue.
Armed groups like the Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army and Rohingya Solidarity Organization continue to operate in the camps.
A report by campaign group Fortify Rights said at least 65 Rohingyas were killed in 2024.
“Violence and killings in the Rohingya camps need to stop, and those responsible must be held to account,” the report quoted activist John Quinley as saying.
