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SpaceX and NASA launched Crew-1 on Sunday, their first full mission.
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On Monday, the crew of four astronauts took a video tour of the Crew Dragon spaceship from orbit.
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They also gave pilot Victor Glover a gold pin to commemorate his first space flight.
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Watch the full video from inside the spaceship below.
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Visit the Business Insider home page for more stories.
The day after SpaceX launched four astronauts into orbit, the crew took a video tour of their Crew Dragon spaceship.
NASA astronauts Mike Hopkins, Victor Glover and Shannon Walker, and Japanese Aerospace Agency astronaut Soichi Noguchi took off Sunday night from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center. Their itinerary requires them to spend 27 hours inside the capsule, which they called “Resilience”, before reaching the space station.
So on Monday, it took the crew a few minutes to show the world their spaceship.
“Good morning, good afternoon, good evening and welcome aboard Crew Dragon Resilience,” Mission Commander Mike Hopkins says in the video, which was streamed live from NASA. “Victor, Shannon, Soichi and I are very pleased to welcome you aboard on the journey to the International Space Station.”
You can watch their video tour below.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TT6BC68UzeY?start=256
“It’s actually quite nice”
The launch of the Crew-1, as the mission is called, marked the beginning of one of SpaceX’s most important flights: the company’s first full-length manned mission for NASA. It is the second time the company has launched people into space, but the longest-running human spaceflight ever launched from the United States. The current record, 84 days, has been held since the longest Skylab mission more than 45 years ago.
Once the Crew Dragon docks at the ISS on Monday night, the astronauts are expected to live and work in the orbiting laboratory for about six months.
Hopkins began the Crew Dragon video tour by showing his cockpit, where astronauts sit for takeoff and landing. He described the three touch displays from which they can monitor and control the spacecraft.
“We can display maps that show where we are on Earth, which is really pretty nice,” he said.
Hopkins then passed the microphone to Glover, the fledgling crew member of the crew. Glover, the mission pilot, had amassed more than 3,000 hours of flying experience on Earth but had never been in space before. With him in the video is the Baby Yoda stuffed toy that the crew brought to serve as an indicator that the ship had entered microgravity.
“Hi everyone, Victor here,” Glover said in the video. “Baby Yoda and I wanted to talk to you a little about hatches.”
Floating near an entrance, he continued, “only about 24 hours ago, we entered Resilience through this side hatch.”
The crew will no longer open that hatch until they are safely splashed in the Atlantic Ocean at the end of the mission. When they dock at the ISS, they will enter through the forward hatch at the top of the capsule.
During his shift with the microphone, Noguchi described the capsule storage area and Walker then explained where the crew keeps emergency supplies and clothing. It also demonstrated how to drink from a bottle of water in microgravity conditions.
The tour culminated in a heartfelt moment as the team lined up for an in-flight ceremony. Once an astronaut has completed two years of basic training, Hopkins explained, he gets a silver pin – an astronaut’s sign “not flown”. But once they have traveled 100 kilometers above Earth, the astronaut receives a gold pin.
“We have a member of our crew who doesn’t have the proper equipment for his uniform,” he said, turning to Glover.
Hopkins then passed a gold pin to Glover, who showed it to the camera.
“Congratulations,” he said as Noguchi and Glover slammed their fists.
“All for one, crew-1 for all,” the team said before signing.
Morgan McFall-Johnsen contributed to the report.
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