Flexibility is on the way to the International Space Station. Sunday at 7:27 p.m. At the same time, the SpaceX Falcon 9 Booster killed John Fook at the Kennedy Space Center’s Launch Complex 39A, with its engines illuminating the Florida coast. The perfect start to the Gramprop-shaped Crew Dragon spacecraft – a pseudonym of flexibility – A historic moment in American space flight.
Michael Hopkins, commander of the Crew-1 spacecraft, said before launching, “Together in these difficult times, you have not named this wonderful vehicle in the nation, the world and any small part of it.”
Flexibility is the theme of the launch. Since the end of the space shuttle program in 2011, NASA has sent humans on an active mission to orbit the United States. The start of this special mission was delayed, pushed back and postponed several times – the actual timeline included the November 2016 start date. Four years And some technical stumbling blocks laterFlexibility is in flight.
Crew Dragon has the International Assembly of Astronauts: Hopkins, Victor Glover And Shannon Walker NASA, plus Sochi Noguchi Of the Japanese space agency Jaxa. The team is expected to spend the next six months on the International Space Station.
“This is a great day for the United States and a great day for Japan,” NASA Administrator Jim Brydenstein said in an introductory post-conference. “The big milestone here is that we’re moving from development and testing to functional flights.”
“I look forward to enjoying the new era and moving forward together for the future,” said Hiroshi Sasaki, Jaxa’s vice president.
Within 10 minutes of its launch, the first phase of the Falcon 9 Booster landed safely on Droneship at Just Reed’s instruction stationed in Atlantic. This is the first time a reusable rocket has been used in a mission and is planned to be used on the next operational flight of SpaceX’s Crew Dragon, Crew-2.
Crew-2 is scheduled to launch in March 2021 and will carry four astronauts. This crew will re-use the dragon underwear that was previously used in the SpaceX Demo-2 mission in May.
Shortly afterwards, at about 12 minutes, the elastic separated from the second stage and went on its way. The spacecraft will now chase the ISS and dock with the ET station around 11pm on November 16.
This is not the first time a Falcon 9 rocket has launched a crew dragon into space. In May, NASA astronauts Bob Behkenken and Doug Hurley were The first two were orbited by a SpaceX workhorse rocket. But he a Test The final box will be targeted before work officially begins for the mission, NASA’s commercial crew program.
Crew-1 signals the return of active flights to United States land and the first flight in the CCP. To date, NASA has been purchasing flights on Russia’s Soyuz spacecraft. Flying SpaceX will save NASA about 25 25 million per seat.
NASA has also entered into an agreement with Boeing to deliver IS astronauts, but The company’s current spacecraft, Starliner, went on technical issues During its first unrestrained exhibition.
You can See the launch replay below.