After months of uncertainty, NASA astronaut Nick Hague and Roscosmos cosmonaut Aleksandr Gorbunov, travelling in the SpaceX Dragon capsule, successfully docked with the International Space Station (ISS) on Sunday to bring back Sunita Williams and Butch Wilmore, who had been stuck there since June 2024.
SpaceX launched a reduced two-man crew to the International Space Station on Saturday, carrying supplies and two empty seats for Starliner astronauts awaiting a return home in February after an unplanned eight-and-a-half-month stay in orbit, CBS News reported.
Astronauts aboard the space station have found themselves facing a foe far tinier than any rogue asteroid: A joint study by IIT-Madras and NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory -- under Principal Investigator Kasthuri Venkateswaran -- has revealed that strains of the bacterial species Enterobacter bugandensis, a multi-drug resistant superbug, have been hitting the gym in the microgravity crucible. Though the situation at the ISS is slightly unsettling, holding funeral dirges would be an overkill, says Kumar Abishek.
Lt Col Raja "Grinder" Chari, 39 is in the batch of 2017.
On Sunday morning Eastern US time, four astronauts will zoom into space on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from the Kennedy Space Centre in Florida. Commanding the spaceflight is Raja Chari, a United States Air Force colonel.
Raja Chari is in training to go to space in 2019. Vaihayasi Pande Daniel presents the story of his journey from Cedar Falls, Iowa, to NASA. A Rediff.com Exclusive!