NASA/SpaceX Crew-4 boards the International Space Station

Crew-4 mission arrives with new American/Italian crew onboard Dragon Freedom

Crew-4 NASA astronauts Mission Commander Kjell Lindgren, Pilot Bob Hines, and Mission Specialist Jessica Watkins, and Mission Specialist Samantha Cristoforetti of ESA (European Space Agency) were greeted by Crew-3 as they arrived to the International Space Station.

April 27, 2022 NASA astronauts Mission Commander Kjell Lindgren, Pilot Bob Hines, and Mission Specialist Jessica Watkins, and Mission Specialist Samantha Cristoforetti of ESA (European Space Agency) now are aboard the International Space Station following Crew Dragon’s hatch opening at about 9:15 p.m. EDT, Wednesday, April 27 (01:15 UTC, April 28).

Crew4 Welcome Ceremony! Rookie Astronauts: Jessica Watkins and Robert "Bob" Hines receive golden Astronaut pins as a welcome tradition for new comers to International Space Station, as they gets their Crew-4 colleuges Cmdr. Kjell Lindgren and Samantha Cristoforetti ©️NASA

C212 Freedom spacecraft docked at the complex at 7:37 pm. EDT (23:37 UTC), as the space station flew about 420 km above the Pacific Ocean. After the Crew Dragon docked to the Harmony module, astronauts aboard the newly arrived craft and space station began performing standard leak checks and pressurization prior to opening the hatch.

C212 spacecraft latched onto the IDA-3 docking adapter in the PMA-3 bay on the Harmony module (Credit: NASA)

Crew-4 joins Expedition 67 crew of Raja Chari, Thomas Marshburn, and Kayla Barron, all of NASA, Matthias Maurer of ESA, and cosmonauts Oleg Artemyev, Sergey Korsakov, and Denis Matveev of Roscosmos. Crew-4 astronauts launched to International Space Station at 3:52 a.m. EDT (07:52 UTC) Wednesday, April 27, from Launch Complex 39A at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida. The international crew of four will spend six months on the orbital complex on a science expedition mission.

The Official Welcome Ceremony will start at 2:40 a.m. (06:40 UTC) Thursday, April 28