Dragon spaceship returns to Port Canaveral after historic splashdown

PORT CANAVERAL, Fla. – Looking a little toasty after a historic splashdown on the Gulf Coast, SpaceX’s astronaut spaceship will return to Cape Canaveral on Friday afternoon.

The Crew Dragon spacecraft nicknamed Endeavor arrived by boat around Port Canaveral around 5am when the recovery ship Go Navigator made its way to Port.

The ship could be detected about half an hour before its arrival from the shore as it headed toward Jetty Park.

SpaceX launches Endeavor on a Falcon 9 rocket on May 30 from Kennedy Space Center with NASA astronauts Bob Behnken and Doug Hurley, became the first time humans have been launched from Florida since 2011. The SpaceX test mission, known as Demo-2, also marked the first time a private company provided astronaut transportation to and from the International Space Station.

Dragon left the ISS on Saturday and successfully completed his test flight in the Gulf of Mexico, where teams joined forces to retrieve the astronauts and their ride.

The astronauts described their return home in detail, the capsule traveled at speeds of up to 17,500 mph in space and then experienced 4.2 G forces landing on Earth.

Behnken said next, before the parachutes deployed to slow the spacecraft from 350 mph to about 15 mph before splashdown, they could feel Crew Dragon maneuvering himself for reloading with the help of their thrusters.

‘It came alive. It started firing thrusters and kept us pointing in the right direction, the atmosphere started to make noise, you can hear that rumble outside the car, ”said Behnken. ‘It does not sound like a machine. It sounds like an animal coming through the atmosphere. ”

Since returning to Earth, Hurley and Behnken have re-adapted to gravity and spent time with their families.

Once the spacecraft returns to Cape Canaveral, work will begin to determine whether NASA can issue the definitive flight certification for Dragon.

SpaceX will take Dragon Endeavor separately to evaluate how the hardware held up in space.

Steve Stich, administrator of NASA’s Commercial Crew Program, said it would take about four months to refurbish the spacecraft before it could fly astronauts again.

“Once it returns to Area 59 at the Cape, it will continue its maintenance, and NASA is part of that maintenance … and we will follow up with every step of that maintenance,” Stich said.

Stich said NASA and SpaceX will first assess all telemetry for unlocking, splashdown and recovery, including life support systems.

If the review and restoration goes well, next time Dragon Endeavor launches could be as early as the first part of next year. On that flight, NASA astronauts Megan McArthur and Shane Kimbrough will be joined by Japanese astronaut Akihiko Hoshide and European astronaut Thomas Pesquet.

McArthur is also the wife of Behnken.

Another astronaut crew, with three NASA astronauts and one Japanese astronaut, is set to launch in late September on a separate Crew Dragon spaceship.