NASA launches SpaceX Crew 1: What you need to know about the historic mission

Despite one Worldwide epidemic, A record Hurricane season And with the problematic rocket engine having to rotate, NASA and SpaceX are committed to launching a historic Crew-1 mission from Florida on Saturday. The flight of four astronauts from the International Space Station in the Crew Dragon Capsule on top of the Falcon 9 rocket follows. Demo-2 mission success And Its historic historical splashdown And will set a few key spaceflight landmarks.

Here are the answers to most of your questions about this mission.

Wait, what about the engines?

The targeted launch date for Crew-1 was pushed back to the end of October after NASA and SpaceX noted some unpredictable behavior from some Falcon 9 engines that were to be used for an unrelated mission. Launch military GPS satellite. He had only two seconds left on the mission countdown and one The investigation has since come out A bit of lacquer filled a little relief valve line. The tail caused two of the rocket’s engines to try and catch fire as soon as possible, causing the liftoff to shut down automatically, potentially damaging the engines.

SpaceX discovered that the rocket engine used for Crew-1 had “similar tendencies”. The launch date was moved to November, the engines were swapped and now both NASA and SpaceX are satisfied that time is running out.

Okay, so why is Crew-1 a big deal?

Crew-1 is part of the culmination of NASA’s commercial crew program that has been in operation for years. For decades, NASA has developed its own rockets and spacecraft internally, usually with the help of contractors, but the commercial crew program works to charter flights. Companies like SpaceX and Boeing have vehicles designed for use by other customers, and NASA can stop riding on them.

Bringing a spaceflight back to U.S. soil is also a big step. Since the end of the space shuttle program in 2011 Demo-2 mission that sent two NASA astronauts to the ISS aboard a crew dragon earlier this year, NASA has relied on the Russian Soyuz spacecraft to turn its astronauts into orbit.

The Demo-2 was considered a successful demonstration of the Crew Dragon and sees NASA Crew-1 as the first official crew rotation mission off the U.S. coast since the shuttle’s retirement.

“This is exciting, especially since Crew-1 is the first time we’ve ever put four people on a space capsule, like humans, that’s pretty cool,” said NASA’s Flight Ntni Vareha, the mission’s chief flight director. “It’s also the longest mission of the Crew U.S. Capsule.”

Who is flying in the crew dragon?

The historic flight will be accompanied by NASA Crew Dragon Commander Michael Hopkins, Pilot Victor Glover and Mission Specialist Shannon Waker, Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JXA) Mission Specialist Sochi Noguchi.

Until now, the Soyuz capsule had three individuals in a stretch ride, but the crew could accommodate up to seven dragons (for comparison, the space shuttle flew up to eight crew), making the journey of these four astronauts seem relatively spacious.

How long is the journey?

Crew-1 members are embarking on a six-month science mission, which is exciting for those involved in the orbit and space science world as four crew members are available for more hands on station to do more experiments in microgravity. .

“It will be exciting to be able to see how much work we can do while we’re there,” Hopkins said Monday.

But first, of course, astronauts have to go there. The actual journey of the ISS takes about eight and a half hours to docking with the station from early Saturday evening to early Sunday morning.

How can I see?

From here. NASA and SpaceX will currently stream to launch 4:49 pm P.T. (Nov. 7:49 ET) Saturday, Nov. 14, from the Launch Complex 39A at the Kennedy Space Center.

NASA TV will broadcast the launch and Dr. King on Sunday and you can watch it with the following link.