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Resilience takes off on the way to the International Space Station
NASA
Resilience is on its way to the International Space Station. At exactly 7:27 pm ET on Sunday, a SpaceX Falcon 9 thruster came to life at Kennedy Space Center’s Launch Complex 39A, its engines illuminating the Florida coast. The perfect launch of the rubber Crew Dragon spaceship, nicknamed Resilience, scores a historic moment in American space flight.
“Working together in these troubled times, he inspired the nation, the world and, to a large extent, the name of this incredible vehicle, Resilience,” said Michael Hopkins, commander of the Crew-1 spacecraft prior to launch.
Resilience is a launching theme. Since the end of the Space Shuttle program in 2011, NASA has not sent humans into orbit from US soil on an operational mission. The launch of this particular mission has been delayed, delayed and postponed several times; the original timeline included a November 2016 release date. Four years and some technical glitches later, Resilience is on the run.
The Crew Dragon contains an international assembly of astronauts: Hopkins, Victor Glover and Shannon Walker of NASA, as well as Soichi 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 of America and a great day for Japan,” said Jim Bridenstine, NASA administrator, at a post-launch conference. “The big milestone here is that we are now moving away from development and testing to move to operational flights.”
“I am looking forward to the new era and let’s move into the future together,” said Hiroshi Sasaki, Vice President of JAXA.
Just under 10 minutes after launch, the first Falcon 9 booster landed safely on the Just Read The Instructions drone parked in the Atlantic. It was the first time the reusable rocket was used on a mission and the plan is to reuse it in the next operational flight of the Crew Dragon, SpaceX’s Crew-2.
The Crew-2 is scheduled to launch in March 2021 and will once again carry four astronauts. It will reuse the Crew Dragon Endeavor, which was first used in the SpaceX Demo-2 mission in May.
Through the smoke, the first stage of the Falcon 9 in the droneship in the Atlantic.
NASA
Shortly after, about 12 minutes, Resilience separated from the second phase and continued on its way. The spacecraft will now chase the ISS and dock at the station on November 16 at around 11pm ET.
This isn’t the first time a Falcon 9 rocket has sent a Crew Dragon spaceship into space. In May, NASA astronauts Bob Behnken and Doug Hurley were the first two humans to be brought into orbit via the SpaceX workhorse. But that was a test mission, the last box to check before NASA Commercial Crew Program operations officially begin.
Crew-1 reports the return of operational flights on US soil and the first flight to the PCC. Until now, NASA was buying flights on the Russian Soyuz spacecraft. Flying SpaceX, NASA will save about $ 25 million per seat.
NASA also hired Boeing to bring astronauts to the ISS, but the company’s manned spacecraft, Starliner, had technical problems during its first unmanned demo launch.
you can watch the replay of the press release below.
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