Copyright © Françoise Herrmann
This morning, at 2 am Pacific Standard Time (PST), the SpaceX Dragon Crew-2 mission docked at the International Space Station (ISS), bringing four more astronaut crew members to the seven-member crew, already stationed. The international crew that just arrived included: Japanese astronaut Akihiko Hoshide, French astronaut Thomas Pesquet, and two NASA astronauts, Megan McArthur and Shane Kimbroug. The new crew is scheduled to stay for 6 months, at the ISS, to carry out experiments of various sorts onboard.
The SpaceX
mission is part of NASA’s program to hand over space crew transportation to private
companies, such as Boeing and Space Exploration Technologies Corp (abbreviated as SpaceX). SpaceX was founded in 2002 by Elon Musk,
also Founder and CEO of TESLA, a company manufacturing electric cars and sustainable solar energy solutions. Specifically, the SpaceX Dragon Crew-2 mission
fulfills the company’s goals to re-use spacecrafts for crew rotation, at the ISS, and cargo transportation. A plan designed to ultimately drive-down the costs of space exploration, while expanding frontiers.
Thus, the SpaceX Dragon Crew-2 mission is in fact already the second mission for the SpaceX Dragon spacecraft, called Endeavor, that just docked at the ISS. The SpaceX Dragon Endeavor was previously used for the first crewed SpaceX Demo-2 Test Flight mission to the ISS. A mission, lasting 2 months, that was also the first NASA-certified commercial space crew transportation flight, within the context of the NASA Commercial Crew Program (CCP). The Dragon Crew-2 Endeavor is even currently docked next to another SpaceX Dragon, called Resilience, used for the SpaceX Crew-1 mission, launched on November 15, 2020.
Now that the Dragon Crew-2 has arrived, the Dragon-Crew-1 Resilience spacecraft is being prepared for bringing the November 2020 crew back to Earth, on April 28, 2021. The Crew-1 mission included three NASA astronauts: Michael Hopkins, Victor Glover and Shannon Walker, and the Japanese astronaut Soicho Noguchi.
Below, The Guardian YouTube video briefly chronicles: docking of the Crew-2 Dragon Resilience to the ISS, enthusiastic greeting
of Crew-2 members upon arrival within the ISS, and a short statement by Astronaut Megan
McArthur.
References
NASA Commercial Crew Program (CCP) https://www.nasa.gov/exploration/commercial/crew/index.html
NASA International Space Station (ISS) https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/main/index.html
SpaceX - Space Exploration Technologies Corp. - https://www.spacex.com/
TESLA - https://www.tesla.com/
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