Science
SpaceX launches first crew on orbit successfully, which will lead to a new era of spaceflight
The aerospace company SpaceX of Elon Mosk successfully launched the first two people in the United States after nearly two decades of work, marking a new era for human space flight. This was the first time in almost ten years that astronauts started to fly from American soil, and SpaceX is the first company to send passengers to orbit a private vehicle.
In the interior of SpaceX's new automated spacecraft, a capsule designed to take people to and from the International Space Station, the two astronauts — the former NASA fliers Bob Behnken and Doug Hurley — rode into space.
Tight in the clever gum capsule, at 3:22PM ET from NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida, the duo lifted off SpaceX's Falcon 9 rocket on Saturday. Around 12 minutes later, the rocket dropped the Crew Dragon into orbit. Now the couple spend approximately the next morning in orbit before trying to dock on Sunday morning with the International Space Station.
On behalf of the whole launch team, "Bob and Doug, thank you for flying with Falcon 9 today," said the chief engineer of Crew Dragon after reaching orbit with the two astronauts. SpaceX's Falcon 9 rocket has been successfully landed on one of the drone ships of the company after the take-off, providing it with a smooth start.
For SpaceX, a company formed by Musk, this launch was a critical occasion to explicitly send people to space and to build Mars' settlements. It is, as a part of NASA's Commercial Crew Program, the final major test for SpaceX.
By taking this initiative, NASA has engaged two companies, SpaceX and Boeing, with the objective of developing new spacecraft which could regularly fly to and from space stations by astronauts of the agency. SpaceX pulled the race to launch people first after six years of design and testing on the Dragon Crew. The mission today is the last major SpaceX test flight to determine whether the crews Dragon is prepared to take NASA astronauts into the ISS regularly over the years to come.
While this mission is considered a test, the United States still had a huge weight. The final flight of NASA's Space Shuttle on 8 July 2011 was the last time people started orbiting the United States. Since then, Russia's Soyuz rocket was the only vehicle available to fly crew to the ISS and NASA has been running around $80 million with one single seat on the Soyuz.
The Commercial Crew Program was established to stop NASA 's confidence in Russia but also to launch a new approach to NASA.
The NASA administrator Jim Bridenstine said before launch, "They 're setting the foundations of this new era in human spacefield flight. "This is an era in human spaceflight in which there will be more space for more people than ever."
It's not yet a complete win. In order to try to sleep before the next major event tomorrow, Behnken and Hurley will spend the next 19 hours on orbit: docking with a station. Your sleep is also needed. Initially, on Wednesday 27 May, SpaceX and the NASA hoped the astronauts would be launched and will undergo the whole pre launch process. But today was forced by bad weather. Bridenstine said after the launch "Bob and Doug, who have now twice been through the exercise need some rest. "But I can assure you that there will be no rest while in orbit for a good amount of time."
The Crew Dragon is designed to dock automatically with the ISS and does not have to receive any input from the crew, but the two astronauts will use the touchscreen controls when they approach the station to handle the capsule. The astronauts will give up control of the Crew Dragon after trying to get around the station automatically and lock it into an available port after the interface has been tested. Docking is expected on Sunday at approximately 10:29am ET.
The two astronauts must finally come back home, and test the ability of the Dragon crew to safely return people to earth.
NASA did not decide when the couple will go home; between six and 16 weeks it will be some time. Behnken and Hurley will go back to the capsule of their Dragon Team and start the intense journey back into the atmosphere of our planet. Crew Dragon has a heat shield to guard the astronauts from their fiery downhill, and the capsule has four parachutes to open the vehicle into the Atlantic. After the splash-out, the crew and their capsules are greeted by a SpaceX recovery boat.
The mission is considered successful at this point. "When Bob and Doug are home safely, I will not celebrate," Bridenstine said.
Much is on this mission, but if everything goes well, the flight might just serve as the start of SpaceX 's journey into the space aircraft. NASA plans to make regular trips to and from the International Space Station using the data collected from this mission for astronauts to certify the crew dragon. The next Crew Dragon flight, which will transport four astronauts, will take place on 30 August SpaceX and NASA: NASA's Victor Glover, Mike Hopkins, and Shannon Walker as well as Japan's Soichi Noguchi. This means that we can soon enter a new era, with private companies taking people routinely to the low Earth orbit.
The ambitions of SpaceX don't stop. The company is currently working on a new monster rocket called Starship, which one day could take people deeply into space, such as the Moon and Mars. The bold vision and reality have many hurdles, but the success we achieve today is a move in the right direction for a company that aims to get people into the cosmos more dearly.
Hans Koenigsmann, Vice President of Construction, SpaceX and Flight Reliability, said during a press conference that everything in our trajectory is towards that moment to launch people on a spacecraft. "This is an enormous step."
