The first part of the Crew-1 mission has completed as a group of 4 astronauts has been arrived at International Space Station (ISS). This is the first fully operational space mission of SpaceX. Astronauts have flown through Crew Dragon on a Falcon 9 rocket. The Falcon 9 took off at 7:27 PM ET Sunday. 4 astronauts are 3 from NASA, Mike Hopkins, Victor Glover, and Shannon Walker as well as Sôichi Noguchi, an aeronautical engineer from the Japanese Aerospace Exploration Agency, or JAXA. Mike Hopkins is the spacecraft commander for the Crew-1 mission.
After the takeoff, Falcon 9 booster has successfully landed on SpaceX’s autonomous spaceport drone ship “Just Read the Instructions” in the Atlantic Ocean. Crew Dragon docked automatically with ISS without any input from the crew inside the dragon at 11 PM ET Monday. The capsule is named “Resilience”. Mike Hopkins defined the meaning of Resilience last September in a press event as, “If you look at the definition of resilience, that means functioning well in times of stress or overcoming challenging or stressful events. And I think that all of us agree that 2020 has certainly been a challenging year — a global pandemic, economic hardships, civil unrest, isolation”.
Crew Dragon is the first certified spacecraft to carry humans to space since the “Space Shuttle”. And it’s the first time a privately held company has received that designation from NASA. The schedule of launches has been planned since 2014 as NASA tasked SpaceX to create a vehicle for transporting astronauts to and from ISS. That task has completed better than hoped by SpaceX. The missions will have for every 6 months as hoped before and it will carry astronauts from NASA and other respectable space programs partnered with the United States as this recently sent mission.
This is the first time since 2011, 7 people set to live onboard at ISS as it’s only housed 6 people once before. Now with this flight, 4 astronauts going to join with 3 astronauts of US astronaut Kathleen Rubins, Russian cosmonauts Sergey Ryzhikov and Sergey Kud-Sverchkov which sent through a Soyuz Capsule last October. So, this is a rejuvenated achievement of mankind and the space industry. But this is not the first time astronauts have launched to space since 2011 as 2 astronauts, Doug Hurley and Bob Behnken launched inside Crew Dragon last May. It was a test flight that lasted just two months from start to the end.
Crew-1 is critical for NASA, as it ensures that they could send astronauts to space from their home soil. After the Space Shuttle incident in 2011, they had to rely solely on Russia to send astronauts to ISS as 1 seat costs roughly 80 million, and now it will cost only $55 million per seat. It’s remarkably advantageous for them and retrieves the legacy of the United States.This mission significant in another way with Victor Glover’s inclusion on the trip. Because he is the first Black American to become a full-time crew member besides sending dozens of Black Americans to space since Guion Bluford did so in 1983 the first time.
A Group of 4 astronauts will spend the next 6 months there, where they will do a lot of experiments, spacewalks, updates, and repairs of the Space Station. Mike Hopkins said before the flight “It’s going to be exciting to see how much work we’re going to be able to get done where we’re there,”. They will be joined by another group of astronauts of Crew-2 before getting back to the earth. It’s planned to launch on 30th March 2021.
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