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Early this summer SpaceX launched NASA astronauts Bob Behnken and Doug Hurley on a landmark mission to the International Space Station. It was the first time that a private launch company had put astronauts into orbit, but the mission was primarily a test flight to demonstrate that SpaceX’s Crew Dragon capsule was safe for human occupants. Behnken and Hurley splashed safely in the Atlantic Ocean in August after a two-month stay on the ISS. NASA officials have reviewed the mission data and on Tuesday certified SpaceX to begin regular crewed flights to the ISS as an operational part of the agency’s manned spaceflight program. It all starts this weekend.
On Saturday night, SpaceX is scheduled to launch four astronauts for its Crew-1 mission. Shannon Walker, Victor Glover and Michael Hopkins fly for NASA and Soichi Noguchi fly for the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency. With the exception of Glover, all of the astronauts have been to the ISS before, but this will be the longest mission they have ever flown. After a quick eight-and-a-half-hour trip to the space station, the crew will spend six months in orbit.
The Crew-1 mission officially marks the return of operational manned spaceflight to the United States. For the past decade, NASA astronauts have had to travel on Russian rockets; it was the longest period in the history of the agency’s manned spaceflight program in which it lacked its own manned launchers. “We are bringing America’s capability for full launch services back and we’re very honored to be a part of that,” Benji Reed, SpaceX’s senior director of manned spaceflight, said during a news conference Tuesday.
The mission was originally scheduled to launch on October 31, which would have coincided with the 20th anniversary of the first space shuttle expedition to the ISS. But in early October, during a non-NASA mission, SpaceX experienced some problems with a blocked valve in the gas generator of its Falcon 9 rocket engine. The gas generator is used to power the turbopumps that pressurize the fuel from the rocket before it burns out in the main engines. NASA officials decided to keep the crew launch until engineers from SpaceX and the agency identified and resolved the problem. “We have worked hand in hand to investigate that anomaly over the last month,” said Steve Stich, manager of NASA’s Commercial Crew Program, during the press conference. “Many times when something happens, the root cause is not found. But here we could, and I feel very good with this vehicle. “
SpaceX was one of two companies selected to develop a spacecraft for NASA’s commercial crew program. But the other company, Boeing, has been hit by setbacks. In late 2019, its Starliner crew capsule suffered a critical software glitch during an unmanned test launch to the ISS, delaying the program by at least a year. On Tuesday, Stich told reporters there would not be another Starliner test flight until the first quarter of 2021.
Until Boeing is ready to go, NASA will depend on SpaceX to access the ISS. Reed said the company will fly seven crew and cargo missions to the station over the next 15 months. “That means starting with Crew-1, there will be a continued presence of SpaceX Dragons in orbit,” Reed told reporters. And beginning with SpaceX’s resupply mission in December, there will often be two dragons docked at once.
SpaceX’s next crewed launch for NASA won’t take place until March, when the company will bring in Shane Kimbrough and Megan McArthur for NASA, Akihiko Hoshide for Japan and Thomas Pesquet for the European Space Agency. Not long after that, SpaceX is expected to start sending private astronauts to the ISS as well. Last year, billionaire hotelier Robert Bigelow announced that he had booked four launches and would sell the seats for $ 52 million each. Axiom Space, a company developing a private space station, has also booked a trip and is expected to send Tom Cruise and three other astronauts to the ISS to shoot a movie next year.
In the meantime, you can watch the SpaceX Crew-1 launch on NASA’s live stream. The launch is scheduled for 7:49 pm ET on Saturday. It’s an instant launch window, so if it doesn’t happen on time, SpaceX will have to try again at 7:27 p.m. ET Sunday.
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