Signal of a new era
With Saturday’s successful launch, SpaceX is paving the way for the return of astronaut missions from the U.S.
KENNEDY SPACE CENTER — SpaceX always knew it wanted to fly humans. It put a window in its cargo capsule, a nod to its hopes that one day someone would look out from that window into the vast expanse of space.
That goal is now within sight. Crew Dragon, its astronaut capsule, took to the skies in the wee hours of the morning Saturday on a historic mission of its own.
Inside: A passenger in a sleek white SpaceX astronaut suit, the mannequin Ripley.
“To be frank, I’m a little emotional,” said SpaceX CEO Elon Musk at a post-launch news conference. “It was super stressful, but it
“To be frank, I’m a little emotional. It was super stressful, but it worked — so far.” Elon Musk, SpaceX CEO at a post-launch news conference
worked — so far.”
With a successful test launch of its astronaut capsule — without crew — from Kennedy Space Center’s historic launch pad 39A Saturday, SpaceX has now opened the path to make good on its human spaceflight mission.
It already made history. Crew Dragon, now on its way to the International Space Station, is the first private spacecraft outfitted for astronauts to launch from U.S. soil since the space shuttle program closed its doors in 2011.
Both it and Boeing’s Starliner CST-100 are part of NASA’s Commercial Crew Program, which in 2014 awarded $6.8 billion to the two companies to develop astronaut capsules. The program is part of an effort to ultimately wean the United States off its $81 million-aseat tickets on Russian spacecraft — the only way for American astronauts to go to the ISS since the end of the shuttle program. It also would free up the space agency to work on other missions by handing over some of the work to private companies.
“NASA is to be one customer of many customers in a robust commercial marketplace and because of that objective, we have numerous providers that are competing on cost and innovation,” NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine said.
SpaceX’s test demonstration is a critical step in the capsule’s certification before NASA puts its astronauts, Bob Behnken and Doug Hurley, inside Crew Dragon as soon as July. Boeing has a test scheduled for April and a crewed mission for as early as August.
But Saturday’s launch, at 2:49 a.m., was the first milestone. The Falcon 9 rocket took off to clear skies precisely on time while shouts echoed from teams watching from a balcony near KSC’s Vehicle Assembly Building.
Musk said that after the capsule took off, he turned to Behnken and Hurley and asked how they felt about their upcoming launch.
“[They] said, ‘We are feeling good about flying on it,’ [and] I said, ‘OK,’” said Musk, who added he feels optimistic about the probability of a crewed flight taking place this year as planned.
But the mission isn’t over yet.
The capsule, carrying 400 pounds of cargo, is expected to dock with the International Space Station at about 6 a.m. Sunday and remain there for five days before undocking on March 8 and splashing down in the Atlantic Ocean off the coast of Florida at about 8:45 a.m.
Meanwhile, teams will work to analyze the data to determine if SpaceX has met all of NASA’s requirements and, if so, what may need to be adjusted for a flight with astronauts aboard.
“We are really wanting to see the on-orbit performance, how the systems are going to be working together,” said Kathy Lueders, manager of NASA’s Commercial Crew Program. “This is an invaluable exercise for us to learn in the space environment how these systems will be working.”
SpaceX’s mannequin is equipped with sensors that will measure forces, acceleration and the environment itself. Ripley is named after Sigourney Weaver’s character, Ellen Ripley, in the “Alien” movies. SpaceX has equipped the inside of the capsule with video cameras to capture Ripley’s ride to space.
“The goal is to get a sense for how humans would feel in her place, basically,” said Hans Koenigsmann, vice president of build and flight reliability at SpaceX.
Musk added Saturday that the preliminary data from Ripley is “looking really good.”
Understanding human responses is critical when it comes to preparing for astronaut-piloted launches. The risks are always heightened. And NASA has had to work closely with SpaceX to mitigate those risks, particularly because the private company has a different approach to human spaceflight.
For instance, SpaceX plans to load propellant with the crew already aboard — a break with NASA procedure.
Russia’s space agency Roscosmos also is worried about Crew Dragon as it approaches the space station this weekend. The capsule doesn’t have a backup computer in the case of a failure, which could endanger the American, Canadian and Russian team aboard the ISS if Dragon collides with it.
On that front, at least, NASA said it had reached a consensus with its Russian partners to build in additional safety features, such as closing several hatches and boarding the ISS crew onto a Russian Soyuz capsule just in the case that Dragon experiences a failure during its Sunday approach.
Talking about the “load and go” propellant procedure, Pat Forrester, chief of the astronaut office at Johnson Space Center, said NASA feels confident that the safety protocols will be sufficient.
“Working with SpaceX, understanding this process, the reason they do it and how they do it, we came to the conclusion that this was an acceptable risk we were willing to take,” Forrester said. “If we were not comfortable with it, we would not be doing it.”
Looking ahead, if SpaceX meets its milestones, it still has to complete work on Crew Dragon before putting astronauts inside. While the test flight is similar to the planned demonstration mission with crew, it’s not identical.
That launch, scheduled for July at the earliest, will have slightly larger life support components, more upto-date software and whatever adjustments are made because of Saturday’s test mission, Koenigsmann said.
If all goes as planned, the Space Coast will have a front-row seat as astronaut launches return to the U.S.
Local businesses are expecting to see a boost in traffic, and NASA is preparing for a new era of human spaceflight.
“It’s just an incredible task,” said Joel Montalbano, deputy manager of the ISS Program. “It brings an excitement back to KSC that we haven’t seen in a while.”