By NASA
November 11, 2021
The Expedition 66 crew postures for an image after SpaceX Crew-3s arrival to station. Credit: NASA TELEVISION
Running more than 30 minutes ahead of schedule, the SpaceX Crew-3 astronauts docked to the International Space Station at 6:32 p.m. EST Thursday, November 11, less than 24 hours after launching from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida. NASA astronauts Raja Chari, Tom Marshburn, Kayla Barron, and ESA (European Space Agency) astronaut Matthias Maurer opened the hatch of their Crew Dragon spacecraft Endurance at 8:25 p.m. and got involved in a welcome event with their new Expedition 66 crewmates at 9 p.m.
On board to welcome them were fellow astronaut Mark Vande Hei, Expedition 66 Commander Anton Shkaplerov and Flight Engineer Pyotr Dubrov of Roscosmos. Signing up with the welcome ceremony from Earth were Kathy Lueders, NASA associate administrator for Space Operations, NASA and Josef Aschbacher, ESA director-general.
The latest team to the microgravity lab is the firms 3rd team rotation mission with SpaceX and will remain on board up until April 2022 as a part of Expedition 66.