Space X launches capsule
Dummy heading to space station in craft designed to carry human crew
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. — America’s newest capsule for astronauts rocketed Saturday toward the International Space Station on a high-stakes test flight by Space X.
The only passenger was a lifesize test dummy, named Ripley after the lead character in the “Alien” movies. Space X needs to nail the debut of its crew Dragon capsule before putting people on board later this year.
This latest, flashiest Dragon is on a fast track to reach the space station this morning, just 27 hours after liftoff.
It will spend five days docked to the orbiting outpost, before making a retro-style splashdown in the Atlantic next Friday — all vital training for the next space demo, possibly this summer, when two astronauts strap in.
Space X founder and chief executive Elon Musk said the launch was “super stressful” to watch, but he’s hopeful the capsule will be ready to carry people later this year.
“To be frank, I’m a little emotionally exhausted,” Musk told reporters barely an hour after liftoff. “We have to dock to the station. We have to come back, but so far it’s worked ... we’ve passed the riskiest items.”
NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine called it “a big night for the United States of America.”
“We’re on the precipice of launching American astronauts on American rockets from American soil again for the first time since the retirement of the space shuttles in 2011,” said Mr. Bridenstine, who got a special tour of the launch pad on the eve of launch by Mr. Musk.
An estimated 5,000 NASA and contractor employees, tourists and journalists gathered in the wee hours at Kennedy Space Center with the SpaceX launch team, as the Falcon 9 rocket blasted off before dawn from the same spot where Apollo moon rockets and space shuttles once soared. Across the country at SpaceX Mission Control in Hawthorne, Calif., company employees went wild, cheering every step of the way until the capsule successfully reached orbit.
Looking on from Kennedy’s Launch Control were the two NASA astronauts who will strap in as early as July for the second space demo, Doug Hurley and Bob Behnken. Shortly after liftoff, Mr. Musk asked them, “How do you feel about flying on it?”
It’s been eight years since Mr. Hurley and three other astronauts flew the last space shuttle mission, and human launches from Florida ceased.
NASA turned to private companies, SpaceX and Boeing, and has provided them $8 billion to build and operate crew capsules to ferry astronauts to and from the space station. Now Russian rockets are the only way to get astronauts to the 250-mile-high outpost. Soyuz tickets have skyrocketed over the years; NASA currently pays $82 million per seat.
Boeing aims to conduct the first test flight of its Starliner capsule in April, with astronauts on board possibly in August.
Mr. Bridenstine said he is confident that astronauts will soar on a Dragon or Starliner — or both — by year’s end. But he stressed there’s no rush.
“We are not in a space race,” he said. “That race is over. We went to the moon and we won. It’s done. Now we’re in a position where we can take our time and make sure we get it right.”
SpaceX already has made 16 trips to the space station using cargo Dragons. The Dragon, designed for human crews, is slightly bigger — 27 feet tip to tip — and considerably fancier and safer. Mr. Musk said the redesigned capsule has “hardly a part in common” with its predecessor.
It features four seats, three windows, touchscreen computer displays and life-support equipment, as well as eight abort engines to pull the capsule to safety in the event of a launch emergency. Solar cells are mounted on the spacecraft for electrical power, as opposed to the protruding solar wings on cargo Dragons.
“It’s an incredibly sleek looking vehicle from the inside and it’s very easy to operate,” Mr. Hurley told reporters just hours before liftoff. He marvels at how the Dragon has just 30 buttons and touch screens, compared with the space shuttle cockpit’s 2,000 switches and circuit breakers.
For the test, the Ripley dummy was strapped into the far left seat, wearing the company’s snappy white spacesuit. The other seats were empty, save for a small plush toy resembling Earth that was free to float upon reaching zerogravity. “Super high tech zero-g indicator added just before launch!” Mr. Musk tweeted. True to his word, the toy rose weightlessly above the seat once the capsule was in orbit.