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Crew Dragon, SpaceX’s human-carrying capsule, is about to face its biggest challenge.
On Monday, the company shared four images via Twitter of her capsule as she prepares for a manned launch scheduled for Saturday. The “Crew-1” mission, scheduled for 7:49 pm Eastern time, will be the first unmanned flight of the SpaceX capsule and the first time that four people have flown together in the capsule.
Visible in the images is the C207 capsule, the first flight for this capsule. The Crew-1 team called him “Resilience, “similar to how May’s first manned C206 capsule was dubbed by the team” Endeavor. “This will be the first flight of” Resilience. “It is connected to a Falcon 9 rocket with NASA’s’ worm ‘logo from the’ 70, reintroduced for May’s flight.
The images, which show the hangar at Launch Complex 39A, highlight how SpaceX and NASA have collaborated to provide a new means to send people into space. Its main purpose is to ferry astronauts to and from the International Space Station.
This was originally a task for the space shuttle, but after its final flight in 2011 the agency began renting seats on the Soyuz rockets taking off from Kazakhstan. NASA’s Commercial Crew program, which partnered with SpaceX and Boeing, aimed to bring these launches a little closer to home.
Although the Crew Dragon had already completed a manned flight in May – the first time SpaceX had sent a human into space – that mission only included two astronauts, Bob Behnken and Doug Hurley. This will present twice as much to reach the maximum, a change that presents its own challenges.
The eight hour flight to the station will mean taclking problems like eating and maybe going to the bathroom. Michael Hopkins, NASA astronaut and space flight commander on the Crew-1 mission, said in response to a question from Reverse Monday we’re going to understand a little bit of this as we go, because we will be the first crew with it […] a full crew. “
The problems encountered on this trip could provide advice for future astronauts. Hopkins noted during the call, in response to a question from the Associated Press, that Behnken and Hurley had given them advice on how to pack food. He explained that “we actually rearranged our food to make sure it was easy to access.”
The four are likely to offer similar help for upcoming missions. Shannon Walker, another NASA astronaut who travels on “Crew-1”, said in the call that the team “will evaluate the choreography needed to do things in that capsule so they can notify future crews when they have four people.” Walker and Hopkins will be joined by NASA astronaut Victor Glover and JAXA astronaut Soichi Noguchi.
He may need to pass on their advice relatively soon. A “Crew-2” mission is scheduled for spring 2021, with the first astronaut from the European Space Agency. Future missions also include one with movie star Tom Cruise, who could go down in history as the first feature film shot in space.
The Reverse analysis – The Crew Dragon’s second manned mission should set expectations for future missions. It will show how the capsule works with four people for several hours, a key feature as NASA aims to use the capsule to its full potential.
While SpaceX is planning several future manned missions, Boeing has struggled with its CST-100 Starliner. The company launched an unmanned mission with the capsule in December 2019, but a timer issue caused the mission to be aborted. Another attempt was planned for December, but last month a NASA safety committee suggested that teams may need more time to prepare the capsule.
For now it looks like manned flights will be about SpaceX.
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