To control a possible tropical storm, NASA is moving forward with plans to bring two astronauts and their SpaceX Ferry Back to Earth Sunday with a dip in the Gulf of Mexico. It will be the first pilot reentry of a Crew Dragon spacecraft and NASA’s first ocean landing in 45 years.
“The review of readiness for the return flight is complete and the NASA team and the SpaceX team all remain ‘ready’ for the return,” NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine told reporters on Wednesday. “We can’t wait to get there Bob Behnken and Doug Hurley back to earth.
“But of course we have some weather pending. Just like when we launched, we had some challenges with the weather, we may have that again. But the first opportunity is still on August 2, and we hope to see if that is going to be in the realm of what is possible. “
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A tropical cyclone potential Heading for Florida and the eastern Gulf of Mexico, he is expected to pass through the area over the weekend. The Crew Dragon capsule used for this first pilot test flight cannot land in winds above about 10 mph, in high waves, or with rain and lightning in the area.
For a dip on Sunday, Hurley and Behnken would undock from the space station’s front port around 7:30 p.m. EDT, establishing a dip near Panama City, Florida, around 2:42 p.m. the next day to complete a 64-day mission.
A SpaceX recovery ship, support crew, and flight surgeons will be ready to pull the capsule on board and help astronauts get out when they begin to adjust to gravity. After initial medical checks, Hurley and Behnken will be flown to the ground by helicopter for a return flight to the Johnson Space Center in Houston aboard a NASA plane.
Steve Stich, manager of NASA’s Commercial Crew Program, said mission managers will assess the weather on a day-to-day basis and make a final decision on whether to proceed shortly before the planned takeoff on Saturday night. Or sooner depending on the forecast.
“We will have to assess the weather every day and just see how things play out,” Stich said. “This is a test flight, and we will take our time. We have many opportunities here in August, and we are in no rush to return home. We have truly completed all objectives for the mission.”
Hurley and Behnken were launched to the International Space Station atop a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket on May 30. It was the first orbital launch piloted by NASA astronauts from American soil since the last space shuttle flight in 2011.
Stich said the capsule, designed, built and owned by SpaceX, has worked perfectly during his two months in space and engineers are eager to put it back to Earth for a detailed post-flight inspection.
Meanwhile, SpaceX is putting the finishing touches on a second Crew Dragon spacecraft at its factory in Hawthorne, California, in preparation for the company’s first operational flight, known as Crew 1, which will take four astronauts to the space station this fall. .
The Crew Dragon that brought Hurley and Behnken into space will be restored, modified to handle harsher weather, and launched in SpaceX’s second crew rotation operational mission, Crew 2, early next year.
“The importance of retrieving the vehicle, retrieving Bob and Doug safely, is evaluating the data from this flight, which prepares us for the mission of Crew 1 as early as the end of September,” Stich said. “And we will methodically review the data for that flight and make sure we are ready to begin operational flights.”
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