As a new crew prepares to launch to the International Space Station from Florida next week, one small personal item will make the journey alongside the astronauts: a child’s stuffed rabbit belonging to Jewish astronaut Jessica Meir’s young daughter.

Meir, an American Jewish astronaut and one of four crew members assigned to the mission, shared that she plans to bring the toy as a way to stay connected to her three-year-old child during the long stay in orbit.

Astronauts traveling to the space station, which circles Earth at an altitude of about 250 miles (400 kilometers), are traditionally allowed to bring along a few meaningful items from home to accompany them during their months 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, tells 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 says.

According to NASA, the SpaceX Crew-12 mission is scheduled to depart early Wednesday, launching aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from Cape Canaveral, Florida, bound for the orbiting research facility.

Meir, who is a marine biologist and physiologist, previously served as a flight engineer on a 2019–2020 expedition to the station and took part in the first all-female spacewalks. She is the daughter of an Iraqi-Israeli father and a Swedish mother.

Since her last mission, Meir has become a mother, and she acknowledged the emotional difficulty of preparing for an extended separation that is expected to last about eight months.

“It does make it a lot difficult in preparing to leave and thinking about being away from her for that long, especially when she’s so young; it’s really a large chunk of her life,” Meir says.

“But I hope that one day, she will really realize that this absence was a meaningful one, because it was an adventure that she got to share in and that she’ll have memories about, and hopefully it will inspire her and other people around the world,” Meir adds.

{Matzav.com}