SpaceX is about to launch NASA astronauts to the International Space Station on its Crew Dragon spaceship. Here's what to expect.
by dmosher@businessinsider.com (Dave Mosher,Morgan McFall-Johnsen)- Eighteen years after Elon Musk founded SpaceX, the rocket company is preparing to launch its first people.
- On Wednesday, NASA astronauts Bob Behnken and Doug Hurley boarded SpaceX's Crew Dragon spaceship in preparation to ride it to space atop a Falcon 9 rocket.
- The Demo-2 test mission for NASA is set to launch from Kennedy Space Center in Florida at 4:33 p.m. ET, and take about nine minutes to reach orbit.
- Behnken and Hurley will fly to the International Space Station, where they will stay for about 3 months. Then they'll climb back inside the space capsule, return to Earth, and parachute into the Atlantic Ocean.
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Since Elon Musk formed SpaceX in 2002, the company has turned the spaceflight industry upside-down with dozens of reusable rocket launches.
For all its achievements, though, SpaceX has never flown a person into space.
That's about to change. NASA astronauts Bob Behnken and Doug Hurley have put on their spacesuits, climbed aboard SpaceX's new Crew Dragon spaceship, and are preparing to ride the gumdrop-shaped vehicle into orbit atop a 23-story Falcon 9 rocket.
Liftoff is scheduled for 4:33 p.m. ET on Wednesday.
The astronauts' Demo-2 mission will be SpaceX's first human-rated flight and its second full test flight for NASA's Commercial Crew Program. The goal of the roughly $8 billion effort is to restore American access to space with commercial partners. SpaceX is poised to achieve the feat before its competitor, Boeing. NASA retired all of its space shuttles in July 2011, so has been relying on Russian spacecraft to shuttle astronauts back and forth to the International Space Station since then.
If Behnken and Hurley arrive successfully at the space station, they may stay for more than 100 days.
Here's every notable step of SpaceX's first crewed flight, which will be the company's most critical, dangerous, and historic mission to date.
Doug Hurley and Bob Behnken are poised to make spaceflight history on Wednesday, both for the US and SpaceX.
At 4:33 p.m. ET, the two NASA astronauts are scheduled to ride SpaceX's Crew Dragon spaceship into orbit — a test flight called Demo-2 — thereby becoming SpaceX's first human passengers.
Source: Business Insider
Behnken and Hurley's mission began in earnest on May 13: when the astronauts checked into quarantine at a living facility on the grounds of Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas.
Although NASA and SpaceX are moving forward with Demo-2 during the coronavirus pandemic, quarantines are standard: They help prevent crew members from getting sick while orbiting 250 miles away from the nearest hospital.
NASA gave Demo-2 a flight-readiness review over the weekend. The positive results kicked off a series of final preparations for launch.
Source: Spaceflight Now
A few days before liftoff, SpaceX rolled the stacked Crew Dragon spaceship and Falcon 9 rocket out of its hangar at Launch Complex 39A.
Then it lifted the rocket into a vertical position on the launchpad.
After the rocket was clamped down and checked out, SpaceX conducted a static fire test.
During static-fire tests, SpaceX pumps super-chilled liquid oxygen and kerosene fuel into the rocket's tanks. Then they fire the rocket booster's nine Merlin engines for a few seconds to ensure there are no problems.
On Saturday, Behnken and Hurley drove out to the launchpad to conduct a full launch dress rehearsal with SpaceX to ensure everyone and everything was ready.
Kim Shiflett/NASA via AP Photo
NASA got one more chance to call off the mission on May 25 with a launch-readiness review. It gave the green light.
A few hours before launch, Behnken and Hurley were helped into their spacesuits. The garments are made to protect the astronauts from a sudden loss of air pressure and even fire.
Before climbing into a Tesla that would drive them to the launch pad, Behnken and Hurley said goodbye to their families.
Speaking on NASA live TV just two hours before the scheduled liftoff, Musk said he felt responsible for the astronauts' lives.
"I felt it most strongly when I saw their families just before coming here," Musk said, pausing for a few seconds and appearing to choke up before continuing. "I said, 'We've done everything we can to make sure your dads come back ok.'"
Then they rode out to the launch pad and ascended an elevator to the top.
They walked down an access arm to their spaceship.
The arm connected to a rectangular hatch on the side of the spacecraft, where Behnken and Hurley wormed their way through...
... And crawled into the white cabin of the Crew Dragon spaceship.
SpaceX staff buckled the astronauts into their reclined seats, waved goodbye, and sealed the hatch.
Next came a thorough checklist of items before launch.
About 45 minutes before liftoff, the astronauts armed a launch escape system — just in case anything goes wrong during a roughly half-hour fueling procedure called "load and go."
Steve Nesius/Reuters
Source: Space News
SpaceX showed its escape system works in January by launching a Crew Dragon atop a Falcon 9 rocket. During the most strenuous part of the flight, the ship — empty save for a mannequin — safely flew away from the doomed rocket.
Once the rocket is fully fueled and the clock counts down, Behnken and Hurley will wait through some of the longest seconds of their lives.
The force of the launch will press them into their seats as the Falcon 9 spends the next nine minutes accelerating Crew Dragon to 17,500 mph. That's about 10 times as fast as a bullet, and the speed required to orbit Earth at the space station's altitude.
The crew's journey to space will look something like this. Once the Falcon 9 rocket booster expends most of its fuel, it will detach from the upper stage and attempt to land on a boat at sea to fly another day.
If there's a major problem with the rocket en route to orbit, the escape system is designed to automatically pull Crew Dragon away from danger.
Once Behnken and Hurley safely reach orbit, they'll climb out of their spacesuits, begin a series of tests, eat, and get some much-needed rest.
Kennedy Space Center/SpaceX via Flickr
The phases for this stage of SpaceX's Demo-2 mission look like this.
After about 15 hours of flying above Earth, the space station will come into view.
NASA
Crew Dragon will pull up to a spot about 220 meters (722 feet) in front of the ISS.
At that point, the astronauts will try out their spaceship's all-new touchscreen docking controls — just in case there's a problem with the automated system.
Once they show the new interface works, Crew Dragon's computer will resume control, propel the spaceship to its port, and berth it to the ISS.
The three-person crew of Expedition 63, commanded by fellow NASA astronaut Chris Cassidy, will be waiting to greet Behnken and Hurley once the hatches open.
Behnken and Hurley will stay with their new space-station colleagues for up to 110 days. Future SpaceX crews may linger for more than six months.
NASA
Before Behnken and Hurley leave the ISS, they'll grab a historic memento: an American flag flown on the first space shuttle mission and left by the crew of NASA's final space shuttle flight, of which Hurley was a member.
"I understand it's going to be sort of like a capture the flag moment here for commercial spaceflight. So good luck to whoever grabs that flag," Barack Obama said in 2011.
Source: NASA via YouTube
Back inside Crew Dragon and suited up, Behnken and Hurley will bid the space station farewell.
SpaceX
Their return to Earth is supposed to follow a timeline like this.
Crew Dragon will fly away from the ISS until it's in position to shed its tube-like trunk, a lower section outfitted with fuel tanks, solar panels, and other hardware the astronauts will no longer need.
This will expose the capsule's heat shield, which will plow through Earth's atmosphere, generate superheated plasma, and help bleed off the energy of moving at dozens of times the speed of sound.
Minutes later, Crew Dragon will deploy a series of parachutes to splash down in the Atlantic Ocean just off the coast of Cape Canaveral.
SpaceX's GO Searcher ship will be at the ready with a helicopter in case Behnken or Hurley need to be rapidly evacuated to land for medical attention.
If all goes well, Demo-2 will set the stage for SpaceX's first operational mission with NASA astronauts Victor Glover and Mike Hopkins, who may fly to the ISS before the end of the year.
NASA
A successful Demo-2 mission would also tee up a bright future for SpaceX, NASA, and commercial spaceflight in general.
The stakes are immense for NASA and SpaceX. In July 2011, NASA flew its last space shuttle mission, effectively ending crewed spaceflight from American soil.
Since then, the only approved ride for NASA astronauts to and from space has been Russia's Soyuz launch system.
Source: Business Insider
Soyuz is necessary to get astronauts to and from the International Space Station, which not only represents a $100 billion US investment, but is a football-field-size laboratory where NASA performs research for future crewed missions to the moon and Mars.
Sources: Business Insider (1, 2)
But Russia has made use of its monopoly on spaceflight. When NASA still launched space shuttles, a round-trip ticket on Soyuz cost about $20 million. In May, NASA agreed to pay Russia more than $90 million per Soyuz seat.
Sources: Business Insider, Irene Klotz/Aviation Week
NASA has worked with SpaceX, Boeing, and others since 2012 to build all-new American spaceships through the Commercial Crew Program.
SpaceX was first to jump through all of NASA's hoops to convince the agency it's ready to fly astronauts.
On August 3, 2018, NASA announced it had selected Hurley and Behnken to fly SpaceX's Demo-2 mission.
David J. Phillip/AP
Source: Business Insider
Both are engineers who've flown on space shuttle missions to the space station. Gwynne Shotwell, SpaceX's president and COO, has described the men as "badass" test pilots, astronauts, and dads.
Source: Business Insider
The duo, along with other astronauts, have worked closely with SpaceX to provide critical feedback about Crew Dragon for years.
Source: Business Insider
They've also met with Musk many times to discuss ideas for Crew Dragon's improvement.
"On more than one occasion [Musk] has looked both Bob and I right in the eye and said, 'Hey, if there's anything you guys are not comfortable with or that you're seeing, please tell me and we'll fix it,'" Hurley said during a NASA briefing.
Source: Business Insider
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