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SpaceX, Elon Musk’s American space company, has successfully transported four astronauts to orbit, which in the next few hours will reach the International Space Station (ISS), about 400 kilometers from our planet. The launch took place from Cape Canaveral (Florida) at 7:27 pm on Sunday (1:27 am on Monday morning in Italy) and marks an important new result for NASA and SpaceX, and more generally for the industry. space. US.
The flight, called Crew-1, is part of the first fully operational mission of Crew Dragon, the transport capsule developed by SpaceX on behalf of NASA. With the test carried out last May, it is the second launch with humans from US soil since 2011, when NASA closed the space shuttle program, leaving no means of transportation for its astronauts.
NASA astronauts Shannon Walker, Victor Glover and Mike Hopkins travel to the ISS, along with Soichi Noguchi of the Japanese space agency (JAXA). His arrival is scheduled for 5 am (Italian time) on Tuesday, November 17. Crew Dragon will activate the automatic system to dock in the ISS, already proven in previous missions with and without crew, and that does not require any intervention on the part of its passengers.
Crew-1 astronauts, left to right: Shannon Walker, Victor Glover, Michael Hopkins and Soichi Noguchi (Photo / John Raoux via AP)
Crew Dragon is a fairly comfortable space capsule, compared to the Soyuz, the only spacecraft that until now could guarantee the transport of astronauts to the ISS. NASA, like other space companies, had to request an expensive ticket from the Russian space agency (Roscosmos) to put its astronauts into orbit, paying the equivalent of about 80 million dollars for each of them.
In addition to offering greater control over the launch, which can take place from Florida and not from Kazakhstan as for Soyuz, SpaceX requires an average of $ 55 million per passenger, with significant savings for NASA and other space agencies.
A demo version of Crew Dragon, in Cape Canaveral, Florida, United States (AP Photo / John Raoux)
The Soyuz also allows a maximum of three astronauts to be put into orbit, while the Crew Dragon can carry up to four, with the possibility of carrying the ISS crew of six to seven members. The Crew-1 astronauts will join the station’s current tenants: NASA astronaut Kate Rybins and Russian cosmonauts Sergey Kud-Sverchkov and Sergey Ryzhikov, who have been orbiting Earth since last October.
The ISS had been so crowded for almost ten years and that could lead to some initial inconvenience, waiting to reorganize part of the spaces on board to offer accommodation to all. Work is already underway, but one of the newcomers may be forced to sleep for a few days at Crew Dragon, hoping to find more stable accommodation. The capsule will remain docked at the Station for the entire six-month stay of its crew, which will then use it to return to Earth when another group of astronauts takes over.
The International Space Station, with the Earth in the background (NASA)
On the night between Sunday and Monday, Crew-1 astronauts arrived at the capsule mounted on a Falcon 9, the 70-meter-tall rocket that SpaceX uses as its primary transportation system to Earth orbit. After the security controls, the rocket ignited the 9 engines of its first stage powered by kerosene and liquid oxygen, pushing the capsule up to 90 kilometers of altitude. Once the fuel was exhausted, the first stage detached itself from the rest of the rocket, leaving the task of continuing the journey towards the second stage, equipped with a single engine, more than enough for the second part of the flight in the space environment.
Take off! pic.twitter.com/Unf1ScdVFB
– SpaceX (@SpaceX) November 16, 2020
The first stage made a scheduled return to Earth and regularly landed on the floating platform “Just Read the Instructions” in the Atlantic Ocean. It will be recovered, refurbished, and used again for the launch of the next astronaut mission. Reusing the first stage, the most expensive part of the Falcon 9, is the key element of SpaceX’s business model: It saves several million dollars compared to competitive solutions, which use their launchers once, which destroy the re-enter the atmosphere.
Falcon 9’s first stage booster has landed on the Just Read the Instructions drone! pic.twitter.com/HSFJKpR4Rm
– SpaceX (@SpaceX) November 16, 2020
Even if the launch was perfect, like test one last May with just two astronauts, NASA managers are still very cautious about declaring the mission accomplished. Putting humans into orbit is not easy and there can always be unforeseen events: until the four astronauts return to Earth, demonstrating Crew Dragon’s capabilities to re-enter the atmosphere as well, SpaceX and NASA will continue to keep an experimental approach in place. routine for initiative.
If all goes according to plan, we will enter a new phase of orbital travel with SpaceX, which several times a year will bring astronauts from NASA and other space agencies, including European ESA, to the ISS. This condition was reached after about six years of work, and with several delays and revisions of plans to guarantee the safety of the astronauts. In fact, NASA requires numerous controls before certifying spacecraft, especially if much of its control remains in the hands of individuals. The space agency has always entrusted the implementation of many of its systems to outside producers, but later gained full control for management. In this case, however, much of the practical organization remains in a private individual.
SpaceX will have a monopoly on travel to the ISS from US soil for some time. In fact, NASA had commissioned Boeing to produce an alternative system, but the company ran into several problems in its development and encountered a malfunction in its unmanned test last year, which made docking its Starliner capsule impossible. to the International Space Station. Boeing is working to fix the problem, but it will be months before it can restart the approval process for its spacecraft.
The Crew-1 launch marks a historic moment for NASA, at a time when the space agency’s plans are quite uncertain when it comes to human exploration. In recent years, the Donald Trump administration has pushed hard to re-explore the Moon as part of the Artemis space program, which is expected to land an astronaut on the lunar floor for the first time in 2024. The goal is the second. several experts available, but not in such a short time and with the budget cuts that NASA could face in the near future. The result of the presidential elections, with the victory of Joe Biden, could have an even greater influence, marking a change of objectives and strategies for the space by the new administration.
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