By: Isaac Pischer
This summer, history was made as we launched two astronauts to the International Space Station, onboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket, and Crew Dragon Capsule as part of the NASA Commercial Crew Program. This was the first launch since the Space Shuttle, which was retired in 2011. This prevents the U.S. from having to buy seats onboard the Russian Soyuz spacecraft.
The Commercial Crew Program started right after the Shuttle was retired, with contracts awarded in 2014 to SpaceX for their Crew Dragon, and Boeing for the Starliner. Astronauts Bob Behnken and Doug Hurley were selected for the Crew Demo mission, as well as Mike Hopkins, and Victor Glover for the first long-duration operational mission.
The flights came after a successful uncrewed demonstration mission in March 2019 and years of development and testing, before having the crewed missions delayed a couple of months because of COVID-19.
With a successful static fire complete, launch day (May 27th, 2020) came around and all preparations went as planned for an instantaneous lift-off at 4:33 PM EDT. Unfortunately, the weather prevailed, and a scrub delay was called with about 10 minutes left in the count. The teams prepared for the backup window on May 30th. The launch window on May 30th was once again iffy with the weather, with only a 50% probability of good weather at the time of lift-off. Fortunately, that played out, and a ‘GO’ for launch call was given as scheduled at T-45 seconds before launch.
“Let’s light this candle,” Astronaut Doug Hurley responded, quoting an Apollo astronaut.
The Falcon 9 roared to life for a successful liftoff at 3:22 EDT from historic Launch Complex 39A at the Kennedy Space Center. Once in orbit, the booster detached nominally for a landing offshore on a drone ship “Of Course I Still Love You”. After a couple of flight tests, the Dragon (named Endeavour by Behnken and Hurley) docked to the ISS the next morning, with Behnken and Hurley joining Astronaut Chris Cassidy, and Russian Cosmonauts Ivan Vagner and Anatoli Ivanishin who launched in April aboard a Soyuz. For the next 2 months, Behnken and Hurley became a vital part of the ISS Expedition 63 crew, increasing the amount of science being done, and helping to maintain the Station. Behnken and Cassidy also performed 4 spacewalks, joining the elite group of 10+ spacewalks.
Behnken and Hurley undocked from the Station on August 1st and splashed down on August 2nd. A few minor anomalies occurred, including an iPad losing important data, and parachutes deploying a fraction of a second too late, while still in the margin of safety. However, after the Splash Down, a couple of wayward boaters decided to inspect the vehicle before others. The Coast Guard, NASA, and SpaceX agreed that a change to protocols needed to be made. A couple of toxic gases were also found but were determined not to be dangerous after purging operations.
NASA and SpaceX then turned to the 2nd crewed flight, the first operational and ongoing mission, Crew 1. After a review of the data from the Demo 2 mission and a fix for the parachute system, the Dragon was given certification for flight by the FAA. Astronauts Mike Hopkins & Victor Glover, as well as Shannon Walker & Japanese astronaut Soichi Noguchi trained and were ready for the flight on board the Dragon, named resilience by the crew. Everything was in order for a launch in October, however, an issue with a Merlin engine, which powers the F9 rocket delayed the launch to November. The mission was then given a ‘GO’ to proceed with launch preparations for a November 15 launch.
With another 50% chance of favorable weather, the mission proceeded with the count, and lifted off at 7:27 PM EST, beginning a 27 rendezvous with the station with docking late the next day, with the astronauts joining astronaut Kate Rubins, and cosmonaut Sergey Kud-Sverchkov and Sergey Ryzhikov.
The crew is currently docked to the ISS, with undocking and splashdown scheduled for early May, after the Crew 2 mission launches 4 astronauts aboard the Endeavour once again. The station also had two dragons docked for a 6-week increment in December, after a Dragon cargo vehicle launched on the CRS-22 mission.
Crew 2 will launch in April 2021, relieving the crew 1 mission. At the same time, the Soyuz craft which launched Kate, Sergey, Sergey will also deorbit and return home, with the next mission being solely Russian cosmonauts. Crew 2/Expedition 65 and Crew 3/Expedition 66 will then swap in the October timeframe. Late 2020 will also include private Dragon flights, with a flight of Tom Cruise will launch to film a movie in Space, and much more. At the same time, the Boeing Starliner should be starting long-duration missions, after a March 2021 operational (uncrewed) flight test. A variety of experiments and EVA’s (spacewalks) are planned for these upcoming missions.
The Artemis-1 mission, an uncrewed flight, is also coming up to serve as a pavement for the next man and first woman to be on the moon by 2024.