NASA astronauts on the historic SpaceX mission aiming to return on August 2

07/18/2020 World


The exact time and date of their return home will be determined by the weather, NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine said on Twitter.
Millions of people saw Behnken and Hurley tethered to a SpaceX Crew Dragon capsule on May 30, launching their month-long mission on the International Space Station. It was the first time in nearly a decade that humans had launched into the ISS from American soil, and it was the first manned mission for SpaceX in its 18-year history.

Behnken and Hurley have spent the past two months aboard the ISS alongside NASA astronaut Christopher Cassidy and Russian cosmonauts Anatoli Ivanishin and Ivan Vagner, who had previously flown into orbit from the laboratory aboard a Soyuz spacecraft built in Russia.

NASA astronauts have spent their days taking spacewalks to upgrade the space station hardware and conducting scientific experiments designed for the microgravity environment on board the station. They have also shared images taken from a display module aboard the space station, which has orbited Earth and hosted astronaut crews from around the world for two decades.

The United States is a major operator of the space station, but the country has not had the ability to launch its own astronauts to the ISS since the space shuttle program ended in 2011. Since then, NASA astronauts have had They travel to Russia and train on the country’s Soyuz spacecraft in seats that have cost up to $ 90 million each.

SpaceX's Crew Dragon took flight on a historic mission. Whats Next?
SpaceX worked for a decade to develop its own replacement for the Shuttle under a $ 2.6 billion fixed-price contract with NASA. Although largely funded by taxpayers, SpaceX designed and owns its Crew Dragon pods and associated Falcon 9 rockets flying on board. NASA will serve as a SpaceX customer, purchasing astronaut seats as needed, and will allow the company to enroll its own passengers, including tourists, scientists and even movie stars for future missions.

The journey that Behnken and Hurley started in May will not be considered a success until they return safely to Earth. And the journey home will be as dangerous as the journey in orbit.

If time permits, astronauts will board their Crew Dragon spacecraft on August 1 and spend a day slowly descending toward Earth. The next day, the capsule will traverse Earth’s thick atmosphere and deploy parachutes to cushion its landing in the Atlantic Ocean.

If done successfully, SpaceX’s Crew Dragon vehicle could be officially certified for human space flight missions. (Behnken and Hurley’s trip is considered a test flight.)

NASA’s decision to set a target return date is a sign that SpaceX is on track to have a second crew Dragon ready to fly the first manned operational mission, called Crew-1, this fall. That mission is slated to bring three NASA astronauts – Victor Glover, Michael Hopkins, Shannon Walker, and Soichi Noguchi, an astronaut from the Japan space agency, to the ISS.

.

Tags

Designed by Tricksfast Solutions
© Copyright 2024, All Rights Reserved