Cape Canaveral, Fla. – The capsule with four astronauts from SpaceX’s new interior arrived at the International Space Station on Monday, their new home until spring.
The Dragon Capsule 27 hours later, a fully automated flight from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center, pulled up and docked late Monday. The linkup happened 262 miles above Idaho.
Mike Hopkins, the dragon’s commander, called out to space station astronaut Kate Rubins, “Oh, what a sound.”
After the two spacecraft joined together, he added, “We can’t wait for you to come on board.”
This is the second astronaut mission for SpaceX. But this is the first time Elon Musk’s company has delivered crews to invest in full half-year stations. Earlier this year, two pilot test flights lasted two months.
Three Americans and a Japanese astronaut will remain in the orbit lab until their replacement on another dragon in April. And so with SpaceX – and finally Boeing – it will transport astronauts to and from the station for NASA.
This regular taxi service resumed with the start of Sunday night.
Hopkins and his crew – Victor Glover, Shannon Waker and Sochi Noguchi of Japan – were joined by two Russians and an American who flew from Kazakhstan to space last month. Glover is the first African-American to travel long distances. Debutant in space, Glover was presented with his gold astronaut PIN on Monday.
These four people named their capsule relaxation to provide hope and inspiration to the whole world during a particularly difficult year. They aired a tour of their capsule on Monday, showing touchscreen controls, storage areas and their zero gravity indicator: a small plush baby yoda.
Vaker Kare said the test flight was a little tougher for him than the two astronauts.
“We dance around each other to stay away from each other’s ways.”
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For the start of Sunday, NASA kept guests to a minimum due to the coronavirus, and even Musk had to stay away after tweeting that he was “mostly” infected. Gwynn Shotwell, president of SpaceX, replaced him in his official launch duties, assuring reporters that he was still heavily involved in Sunday night’s proceedings, albeit remotely.
As they prepared for the space station linkup, the Dragon Crew was beaming over New Zealand’s live window views and a bright blue, cloud-perforated Pacific 250 kilometers below.
The Mission Control Radio from SpaceX headquarters in Hthorney, California, “looks awesome.
“It sounds amazing from here, too,” Hopkins replied.
