On November 11, Lianhe Zaobao reported that American Space Exploration Technology Corporation (SpaceX) will launch the Falcon 9 rocket on the evening of Wednesday (10th) us time to send four astronauts to the international space station to carry out the mission code named "crew-3" p> < p > < / P > < p > it is reported that only one NASA astronaut is currently operating in the U.S. branch of the orbital outpost to welcome the upcoming crew. Earlier, astronauts from the earlier crew-2 mission splashed down in the Gulf of Mexico on Sunday night p> < p > American Raja Chari, Kayla Barron and Tom marshburn of "crew-3" and German Matthias Maurer are scheduled to launch from the Dragon spacecraft capsule fixed on the Falcon 9 rocket from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida at 9:03 p.m. local time on Wednesday. The spacecraft, called endurance, will dock with the international space station at 7:10 p.m. local time on Thursday p> < p > the scientific highlights of the mission include an experiment to plant plants in space without soil or other growth media, and another experiment to build optical fibers under microgravity. Previous studies have shown that the quality of such optical fibers will be better than those made on earth. Crew-3 astronauts will also take a spacewalk to complete the upgrading of the solar panels of the space station, and will attend two tourism missions, including Japanese tourists aboard the Russian Soyuz spacecraft at the end of the year and the space-x axiom unit scheduled to be launched in February 2022 p>