SAN DIEGO — NASA astronaut Jessica Meir, who's also a UC San Diego alumni, blasted off successfully on Wednesday for a mission on the International Space Station.
A Russian Soyuz rocket lifted off as scheduled at 6:57 a.m. from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan and entered a designated orbit en route to the station.
A watch party was held at Scripps Institution of Oceanography Wednesday morning with Jessica’s friends, family, and Scripps colleagues. Meir obtained her PhD in marine biology from Scripps Institution of Oceanography in 2009. As a graduate student, she studied the diving physiology of marine mammals and birds, focusing on oxygen depletion in diving emperor penguins in Antarctica and elephant seals in Northern California.
Meir was also accompanied by Oleg Skripochka of Russian space agency Roscosmos, and Hazzaa Ali Almansoori from the United Arab Emirates (UAE). The space craft docked at the space station’s Zvezda service module at 12:45 p.m. At 2 p.m., NASA aired footage of the hatch opening.
The mission is the third spaceflight for Skripochka and the first for both Meir and Almansoori, who is on an eight-day mission under a contract between the UAE and Roscosmos.
The trio will join the crew already on the International Space Station: Russians Alexey Ovchinin and Alexander Skvortsov, NASA astronauts Christina Koch, Nick Hague and Andrew Morgan and European Space Agency astronaut Luca Parmitano.
Hague and Ovchinin are scheduled to wrap up a mission of more than 200 days on Oct. 3 and return to Earth with Almansoori.
Meir plans to stay for six months. During her time on the space station, Meir will work on scientific experiments ranging from studying gravity’s effect on the human body to protein crystal growth to radiation’s effect on humans. To track Meir's journey, visit her NASA page here.
