宇航员创纪录飞抵国际空间站
Four astronauts have arrived at the International Space Station after the fastest American crewed flight ever made to the orbiting laboratory.
The Crew-13 mission blasted off from Cape Canaveral in Florida on the first of October, aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket. Less than eight hours later, their Crew Dragon capsule, named Grace, docked with the station – about five hours quicker than the previous American record. The overall record, however, still belongs to a Russian Soyuz flight, which reached the station in around three hours in 2020.
The crew is commanded by NASA astronaut Jessica Watkins, who became the first NASA astronaut to fly on a Dragon spacecraft twice. She is joined by NASA pilot Luke Delaney, Canadian astronaut Joshua Kutryk and Russian cosmonaut Sergey Teteryatnikov.
Despite concerns about the weather, the launch went ahead on schedule, on the same day that NASA celebrated its 68th birthday. After the rocket lifted off, its reusable first stage returned to Earth and landed back at Cape Canaveral.
The new arrivals briefly brought the number of people on board the station to eleven. They are expected to spend about six months in orbit, carrying out scientific research and maintenance work, before returning to Earth early next year.
四名宇航员抵达国际空间站，创下美国载人飞船飞往空间站的最快纪录。
10 月 1 日，“乘员-13”任务搭乘 SpaceX 的猎鹰 9 号火箭，从佛罗里达州卡纳维拉尔角升空。不到八个小时，名为“格蕾丝”号的龙飞船就与空间站完成对接，比美国此前的纪录快了约五个小时。不过，总的纪录仍然属于俄罗斯：2020 年，一艘联盟号飞船只用了大约三个小时就抵达了空间站。
本次任务的指令长是 NASA 宇航员杰西卡·沃特金斯，她也由此成为第一位两次乘坐龙飞船的 NASA 宇航员。同行的还有 NASA 驾驶员卢克·德莱尼、加拿大宇航员约书亚·库特里克和俄罗斯宇航员谢尔盖·捷捷里亚特尼科夫。
发射当天的天气一度让人担心，但火箭最终按计划升空，而那天恰好是 NASA 成立 68 周年。升空后，可重复使用的火箭第一级返回地面，降落在卡纳维拉尔角。
新成员到来后，空间站上的人数一度达到 11 人。他们预计在轨道上停留约六个月，开展科学研究和维护工作，明年初返回地球。