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Following MSC-003 docking

MSC-003 docks cleanly — "no drama," says flight director, and that is exactly the point

KOEING's R-SLS2 carried Jedidiah Kerman, Huddin Kerman, and Katdorf Kerman to LSI 1 in the program's first successful station docking.

Everything worked the way it was supposed to. That's the whole job.

There was no live drama this time. No failed ports. No improvised spacewalk. MSC-003 — KOEING's R-SLS2 carrying pilot Jedidiah Kerman, engineer Huddin Kerman, and scientist Katdorf Kerman — launched, reached orbit, rendezvoused with the new LSI 1 station, and docked. The whole sequence went according to the flight plan. At mission control, people apparently clapped, which in the context of this program counts as a quiet moment.

Huddin Kerman was the first kerbal to step aboard LSI 1, performing a checkout of the station's systems before the rest of the crew followed. The science module — one of two modules launched with the station core aboard Starship Heavy 4 — was activated by mission scientist Katdorf Kerman within hours of boarding. Experiments are now underway, the details of which NASA has not disclosed.

The crew will remain aboard LSI 1 for the foreseeable future, a period NASA describes as "until the next module is ready to launch," at which point they will assist docking operations from the station side. MSC now has a functioning orbital station and three kerbals living in it. This is, it should be said, what the program was always supposed to be doing.