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Baby Yoda on the way to space. (Screenshot: Youtube / t3n)
Don’t have time now?
The SpaceX “Crew Dragon” spacecraft is carrying four astronauts to the international space station ISS. A very special guest is also on board: Baby Yoda.
The time had come early Sunday night at 7:37 p.m. local time. SpaceX’s Crew 1 mission began at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida. For the company, another milestone in its young history. The flight to the ISS is the first long-duration astronaut flight on behalf of NASA for SpaceX. The astronauts will live and work on the international space station for about six months.
NASA astronauts Victor Glover, Mike Hopkins and Shannon Walker, as well as Japanese astronaut Soichi Noguchi, are aboard the space capsule, powered by a Falcon 9 rocket. But the four astronauts did not go on their own journey. “We have Baby Yoda on board who is currently trying to take a seat,” NASA communications specialist Lea Cheshier said on the live broadcast of the launch.
Tradition among space travelers
In fact, the video shows how a small Yoda plush toy floated weightlessly through the cockpit of the spaceship as it circled the earth and the crew lay down to sleep.
The toy of the well-known Star Wars character from the Disney series “The Mandalorian” is not only on board for the fun of the crew. It is a tradition in space travel to carry soft toys on missions to space. These little stuffed animals are called “indicators of weightlessness.” As soon as the plush companions start floating, everyone knows that the spaceship is no longer exposed to the gravitational force emanating from the earth.
When NASA astronauts Bob Behnken and Doug Hurley embarked on SpaceX’s first manned mission that summer, they also had a toy on board. With “Tremor” they had taken a stuffed dinosaur with sequins, at the request of their children. After his trip into space, Tremor sold out at many stores and shops. A fate that now also threatens the little plush Yoda?
