SpaceX Dragon Endeavour With Crew-8 Aboard Docks to International Space Station

The SpaceX Dragon Endeavour spacecraft, with the Crew-8 quartet aboard, is pictured approaching the International Space Station as it orbited 268 miles above the Indian Ocean. Credit: NASA

NASA astronauts Matthew Dominick, Michael Barratt, and Jeanette Epps, as well as Roscosmos cosmonaut Alexander Grebenkin arrived at the International Space Station, as the SpaceX Dragon, named Endeavour, docked to the complex at 2:28 a.m. EST on March 5 while the station was 260 statute miles over Newfoundland.

Following Dragon’s link up to the Harmony module, the astronauts aboard the Dragon and the space station conducted standard leak checks and pressurization between the spacecraft in preparation for hatch opening.

March 5, 2024: International Space Station Configuration. Six spaceships are parked at the space station including the SpaceX Dragon crew spacecraft Endurance and Endeavour, Northrop Grumman’s Cygnus space freighter, the Soyuz MS-24 crew ship, and the Progress 86 and 87 resupply ships. Credit: NASA

Subsequently, Crew-8 joined the space station’s Expedition 70 crew of NASA astronauts Jasmin Moghbeli and Loral O’Hara, ESA (European Space Agency) astronaut Andreas Mogensen, JAXA (Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency) astronaut Furukawa Satoshi, and Roscosmos cosmonauts Konstantin Borisov, Oleg Kononenko, and Nikolai Chub.

For a short time, the number of crew aboard the space station will increase to 11 people until Crew-7 members Moghbeli, Mogensen, Satoshi, and Borisov return to Earth.