WASHINGTON, United States (AFP) — When the next mission to the International Space Station (ISS) blasts off from Florida next week, a special keepsake will be hitching a ride: a small stuffed rabbit.
American astronaut and mother, Jessica Meir, one of the four-member crew, revealed Sunday that she’ll take with her the cuddly toy that belongs to her three-year-old daughter.
It’s customary for astronauts to go to the ISS, which orbits 400 kilometers above Earth, to take small personal items to keep close during their months-long stint in space.
“I do have a small stuffed rabbit that belongs to my three-year-old daughter, and she actually has two of these because one was given as a gift,” Meir, 48, told an online news conference.
“So one will stay down here with her, and one will be there with us, having adventures all the time, so that we’ll keep sending those photos back and forth to my family,” she said.
US space agency NASA says SpaceX Crew-12 will lift off on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from Cape Canaveral in Florida to the orbiting scientific laboratory early Wednesday.
The mission will be replacing Crew-11, which returned to Earth in January, a month earlier than planned, during the first medical evacuation in the space station’s history.