SpaceX and NASA plan to launch astronauts on the Crew Dragon spaceship again next month

 


spacex crew dragon spaceship capsule splash down gulf mexico pensacola nasa astronauts bob behnken doug hurley thumbs up seats demo2 august 2 2020


SpaceX's Crew Dragon spaceship splashed into the Gulf of Mexico on Sunday, bringing NASA astronauts Bob Behnken and Doug Hurley back to Earth to finish the world's first commercial crewed spaceflight.

The two-month ordeal required the Crew Dragon and its astronauts to rocket into space, dock to the International Space Station, then survive a scorching hot plummet through Earth's atmosphere.

Now NASA and SpaceX are preparing to do it all again.

Behnken and Hurley's mission, called Demo-2, was a demonstration meant to show NASA that SpaceX can safely fly people to and from space, and to expose any oversights or unforeseen complications that come with that complicated task. NASA has contracted six more round-trip astronaut flights from SpaceX, the first from US soil since the Space Shuttle program ended in 2011.

The next mission, called Crew-1, is scheduled to launch in September, after NASA officially certifies Crew Dragon for human spaceflight.

That means NASA and SpaceX have just a few weeks to comb through data from Demo-2, evaluate any shortcomings, and fix them.

"It did not seem like this was the first NASA SpaceX mission with astronauts on board," Michael Hopkins, a NASA astronaut who's slated to fly on the Crew-1 mission, said in a press briefing on Sunday. "It seemed to go extremely smooth, but we also realize there's a lot of work to go."

The other Crew-1 astronauts — Shannon Walker, Victor Glover, and Soichi Noguchi of the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency — nodded in agreement.

Gwynne Shotwell, SpaceX's president and CEO, said even SpaceX leadership was a bit taken aback by how much the mission went according to plan.

"I think we're surprised — minorly surprised, but obviously incredibly pleased — that this went as smoothly as it did," she said. "There's no question that we learned some things along the way that we will want to roll into the Crew-1 flight."

Already, NASA and SpaceX have identified a few changes to make.

NASA and the Coast Guard may get more stern with spectators

One serious kink to iron out has to do with what happens after Crew Dragon splashes down. This time, onlookers on private boats crowded the toasted spaceship.

"The boats just made a beeline for it," NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine said in Sunday's briefing.

Source: Business Insider


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