For the first time in history, two Maine natives are in space at the same time.
York native Chris Cassidy’s docking at the International Space Station Thursday morning marked another extraterrestrial landmark for the state, just over six months after Caribou native Jessica Meir became the first woman from Maine to reach space.
“Safe travels to York native Capt. Chris Cassidy! When he joins Caribou native @Astro_Jessica, two Mainers will be in space for the first time,” Senator Susan Collins tweeted. “At a difficult moment for our nation, Capt. Cassidy and Dr. Meir are shining examples of what we can achieve by working together.”
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The flight is Cassidy’s third since he was selected by NASA in 2004. As a Navy SEAL, he has been deployed twice to the Mediterranean and Afghanistan and has received the Bronze Star Medal and the Presidential Unit Citation, according to NASA.
During Expedition 35 in 2013, “Cassidy and the European Space Agency astronaut Luca Parmitano had their unplanned spacewalk to replace a pump controller box cut short when Parmitano had cooling water leak into his helmet,” according to NASA.
NASA broadcasted a livestream as the Soyuz MS-16 spacecraft carrying Cassidy and Roscosmos, the Russian space agency, astronauts Anatoly Ivanishin and Ivan Vagner docked the ISS.
3-2-1... LIFTOFF! 🚀 Shooting into the sky at 4:05am ET, the Soyuz rocket carrying Chris Cassidy of @NASA_Astronauts and @Roscosmos cosmonauts Anatoly Ivanishin and Ivan Vagner left Earth for a six-hour journey to the @Space_Station. Watch: https://t.co/NkA30hHnBS pic.twitter.com/yLhN2DWmvH
— NASA (@NASA) April 9, 2020
The crew took off from Kazakhstan at 4:05 a.m. and arrived at the space station at 10:13 a.m., according to NASA. The hatch connecting the spacecraft and the station opened at 12:28 p.m., allowing the astronauts to join Meir and two other astronauts on board, as seen on NASA TV.
Cassidy’s crew will live with Meir’s crew until her mission is complete and the crew returns to Earth on April 17. NASA astronauts Meir and Andrew Morgan, along with Roscosmos astronaut Oleg Skripochka, arrived at the space station Sept. 25.
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Cassidy is scheduled to become commander of the space station upon the other crew’s departure. Skripochka is currently the commander of the station, and a change of command ceremony is planned for Wednesday, according to NASA.
The new arrivals will be aboard the station to welcome two NASA astronauts, Bob Behnken and Doug Hurley, when they arrive in May. Behnken and Hurley will arrive on NASA’s SpaceX Demo-2 flight test, NASA said.
The Soyuz crew ship carrying the Exp 63 crew is flying around the station closing in on its docking port on the space station. #AskNASA | https://t.co/yuOTrYN8CV pic.twitter.com/mEZQ65ws4b
— Intl. Space Station (@Space_Station) April 9, 2020
Matt Berg can be reached at matthew.berg@globe.com. Follow him on Twitter @mattberg33.