Space

SpaceX's Crew Dragon delivers four astronauts to the ISS

SpaceX's Crew Dragon delivers four astronauts to the ISS
SpaceX's Crew Dragon spacecraft docks with the ISS
SpaceX's Crew Dragon spacecraft docks with the ISS
View 2 Images
SpaceX's Crew Dragon spacecraft docks with the ISS
1/2
SpaceX's Crew Dragon spacecraft docks with the ISS
View from inside the Crew Dragon capsule as the astronauts prepare to dock with the ISS
2/2
View from inside the Crew Dragon capsule as the astronauts prepare to dock with the ISS

Following the historic Crew-1 launch, which saw four astronauts lifted into space from US soil on the first ever crewed operational flight of a commercial spacecraft, SpaceX’s Crew Dragon has now safely docked with the International Space Station.

When this Crew Dragon spacecraft, dubbed Resilience, lifted off from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center on Sunday, it marked the start of a new era in space exploration for the agency. Since the Space Shuttle was retired in 2011, NASA has been wholly reliant on Russian-built spacecraft to get its astronauts to the ISS, but the development of the Crew Dragon under its Commercial Crew program has now brought such operations back to home soil.

View from inside the Crew Dragon capsule as the astronauts prepare to dock with the ISS
View from inside the Crew Dragon capsule as the astronauts prepare to dock with the ISS

The autonomous docking with the station’s Harmony module took place at 11:01 pm ET time on Monday, following a successful soft capture and a hard capture confirmed soon after. With NASA astronauts Michael Hopkins, Victor Glover and Shannon Walker, along with Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) astronaut Soichi Noguchi, climbing aboard, it will be the first time the ISS’s long-duration crew size will include seven rather than six members.

The members of the Crew-1 launch will remain aboard for a six-month science mission, which is the first of at least six operational missions to be facilitated by SpaceX’s Crew Dragon spacecraft and Falcon 9 rocket. This is actually the second time the spacecraft has successfully docked with the ISS, following the successful Demo-2 mission earlier this year that made history as the first commercial mission to carry astronauts into orbit but which was considered a test flight.

Crew Dragon has also delivered more than 500 lb (226 kg) of cargo, including hardware and science experiments. It is scheduled to return with the astronauts in tow in the springtime (Northern Hemisphere) of 2021.

Source: NASA

2 comments
2 comments
Dan_of_Reason
Whatever anyone says about Elon Musk, he is moving the ball forward, big time on many fronts.
Don Duncan
Generate your own electricity with Elon's PV cells, store it on in Elon's Powerwall, and fuel Elon's car. This is decentralized (distributed) energy, liberation for us, a threat to the govt. energy monopoly. Elon is creating an independent communication system with 30,000 sats, Telstar. He is spending his wealth to colonize Mars. Why? Not for $. For the survival of our species. Govt. tells us it wants that, yet does the opposite. Elon acts without bragging, without a PR department or ads or propaganda. His deeds speak for him. If the political zombies ever wake up they will find their elected "leaders" are lying parasites.