[ad_1]
US astronauts Bob Behnken and Doug Hurley, who flew to the International Space Station in SpaceX’s new Crew Dragon, splashed down within the Gulf of Mexico on Sunday after a two-month voyage that was NASA’s first crewed mission from house soil in 9 years.
Behnken and Hurley, tallying 64 days in house, undocked from the station on Saturday and returned house to land their capsule in calm waters off Florida’s Pensacola coast on schedule at 2:48 pm ET (12:18 am Monday, IST) following a 21-hour in a single day journey aboard Crew Dragon “Endeavor.”
“This has been quite an odyssey,” Hurley advised senior NASA and SpaceX officers at a homecoming ceremony at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas. “To be where we are now, the first crewed flight of Dragon, is just unbelievable.”
The profitable splash-down, the primary of its type by NASA in 45 years, was a remaining check of whether or not SpaceX Chief Executive Elon Musk’s spacecraft can transport astronauts to and from orbit — a feat no non-public firm has completed earlier than.
“This day heralds a new age of space exploration,” Musk mentioned. “I’m not very religious, but I prayed for this one.”
NASA administrator Jim Bridenstine mentioned the profitable mission marked “a new era of human spaceflight where NASA is no longer the purchaser, owner and operator of all the hardware” however one in every of many future prospects of house journey.
“Today we really made history,” Bridenstine advised an earlier press convention.
Despite Coast Guard restrictions and security dangers, spectators in non-public boats surrounded the splash-down website dozens of miles from shore as SpaceX and NASA restoration groups used a crane to hoist the spacecraft out of the water and onto a ship.
The crew’s retrieval from Crew Dragon was delayed barely because the groups labored to flush its gasoline tanks after sensing traces of nitrogen tetroxide fumes exterior the capsule, a poisonous gasoline from one the spacecraft’s flammable fuels.
Hurley, giving a thumbs up as he was wheeled out of the spacecraft on a stretcher, a standard process as astronauts alter to Earth’s gravity, mentioned, “I’m just proud to be a small part of this whole effort to get a company and people to and from the space station.”
“Thanks for doing the most difficult parts and the most important parts of human spaceflight – getting us into orbit and bringing us home,” Behnken advised SpaceX mission management in Hawthorne, California, because the hatch door was opened.
For the return sequence, on-board thrusters and two units of parachutes labored autonomously to gradual the acorn-shaped capsule, bringing Behnken and Hurley’s pace of 17,500 miles per hour in orbit down to 350 mph upon atmospheric re-entry, and ultimately 15 mph at splash-down.
The pair have been to bear medical checks onshore in Pensacola forward of a flight to NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas.
Flag captured
NASA officers have mentioned Crew Dragon, a pod with seven astronaut seats, was in a “very healthy” situation whereas docked on the house station, the place astronauts performed exams and monitored how the spacecraft performs in house.
Behnken and Hurley undocked from the orbital station late on Saturday to start their journey house, waking at 7:40 am Sunday to a recorded wakeup name from their sons.
“Good morning Dragon Endeavor,” Hurley’s son mentioned in a recorded message despatched to the capsule. “I’m happy you went into space but I’m even happier that you’re coming back home.”
NASA, aiming to galvanise a industrial house market, awarded almost $eight billion (roughly Rs. 59,985 crores) to SpaceX and Boeing collectively in 2014 to develop dueling house capsules, experimenting with a contract mannequin that permits the house company to purchase astronaut seats from the 2 firms.
Billionaire entrepreneur Musk’s SpaceX grew to become the primary non-public firm to ship people to orbit with the launch of Behnken and Hurley.
“Congratulations SpaceX & NASA on completing first crewed Dragon flight!!,” Musk wrote on Twitter after the splash-down, including a US flag emoji adopted by “returned” — referring to a rivalry with Boeing over which firm’s astronaut crew could be the primary to retrieve an American flag left on the house station in 2011, when the final crewed mission launched from US soil.
Behnken and Hurley introduced the flag again to Earth, stowed as cargo in Crew Dragon.
The landmark mission, which took off from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center on May 31, marked the primary time the US house company launched people from American soil since its shuttle program retired in 2011. Since then, the United States has relied on Russia’s house program to launch its astronauts to the house station.
“It was a great relief when I saw Bob and Doug come out of the capsule, smiling, thumbs up, looking very cheerful,” SpaceX President Gwynne Shotwell advised reporters. “That was the good moment.”
© Thomson Reuters 2020
[ad_2]
Source