The joint operation between NASA and Elon Musk’s company SpaceX successfully launched a team of astronauts into space to send to the International Space Station. The four-member crew is the first ever to be launched into orbit by a rocket booster that has been recycled from a previous spaceflight. Set to arrive on early Saturday, the crew will have time to dine on pre-cooked meals and snacks before their arrival. The capsule containing the crew was delivered into Earth’s orbit within 10 minutes of launch while traveling 17,000 miles per hour.
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Successful partnership
The first stage of the rocket also successfully descended back on the ground. The ability to reuse booster vehicles remains at the heart of SpaceX, which makes their flights more economical.
Smooth ride
The mission marks the second “operational” space station team launched by NASA aboard a Crew Dragon capsule since human spaceflights resumed from American soil last year, following a nine-year hiatus at the end of the US space shuttle program in 2011. It is also the third crewed flight launched into orbit in 11 months under NASA’s fledgling public-private partnership with SpaceX, the rocket company founded in 2002 by Musk, who is also CEO of electric car maker Tesla Inc.
The first was an out-and-back test mission carrying just two astronauts into orbit last May, followed by SpaceX’s maiden flight of a full-fledged four-member space station crew in November.
“The future’s looking good. I think we’re at the dawn of a new era of space exploration,” the billionaire entrepreneur said at a briefing with NASA officials after watching the liftoff from launch control.
Friday’s Crew 2 team consists of two NASA astronauts – mission commander Shane Kimbrough, 53, and pilot Megan McArthur, 49 – along with Japanese astronaut Akihiko Hoshide, 52, and fellow mission specialist Thomas Pesquet, 43, a French engineer from the European Space Agency. The camera in the capsule of the rocket showed the four astronauts dressed in all white, relaxing in their weightless environment.
Long duration mission
The crew is expected to spend about 6 months at the station conducting experiments. The pilot, Megan McArthur, has made history as the first female pilot of the Crew Dragon and also the second person in her family to ride in the SpaceX capsule.
If all goes well, Crew 2 will be welcomed aboard the space station Saturday April 24th by the four Crew 1 astronauts – three from NASA and one from the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency JAXA. Two Russian cosmonauts and a US astronaut who shared a Soyuz flight to the space station are also aboard
Watch SpaceX Crew-2 Dock at International Space Station!
By AlizeLaVie 04/23/2021
