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The return of astronauts launching to the International Space Station from Florida is still at minimum months away, but Elon Musk is stoking excitement for the SpaceX effort to get the job done with a new animation of what that mission will look like.
SpaceX is one of two commercial companies along with Boeing working with NASA to take over launches to the ISS. SpaceX Crew Dragon will launch atop a Falcon 9 rocket from Kennedy Space Centre, and its next mission aims to be the first to bring humans back into space from Florida since the Space Shuttle programme ended in 2011.
The video shows a simulation of astronauts boarding Crew Dragon from the gantry at Launch Complex 39A, blasting off on its way to the space station and making its parachute-assisted landing on its return to Earth.
“Crew Dragon should be physically ready & at the Cape in Feb, but completing all safety reviews will probably take a few more months,” Musk said on his Twitter account.
Both SpaceX Crew Dragon and the Boeing CST-100 Starliner have been hit with delays that have pushed NASA’s desires for crewed missions from U.S. soil back more than two years.
SpaceX successfully sent an uncrewed capsule on a test launch to the ISS last spring, but the same capsule exploded during a post-launch test in April. It wasn’t until November that SpaceX was able to complete static fire tests to a replacement Crew Dragon.
Boeing attempted its first uncrewed launch of Starliner earlier in December, but while it was able to launch and land successfully, it never made it to the space station because of an issue with a timing system that placed Starliner in the wrong orbit.
SpaceX still has an in-flight abort test to prove its Crew Dragon can successfully escape from the Falcon 9 rocket in the case of a midair flight problem, but no date has been set for that.
And no set date has been chosen for each of the companies’ first crewed test flights.
If and when both companies successfully achieve their crewed test flights to the ISS, they will then begin regular transport flights of astronauts taking over from the current method, hitching rides from Kazakhstan on Russian Soyuz capsules.
The contract calls for 12 total missions to the ISS, six from SpaceX and six from Boeing.
Orlando
The return of astronauts launching to the International Space Station from Florida is still at minimum months away, but Elon Musk is stoking excitement for the SpaceX effort to get the job done with a new animation of what that mission will look like.
SpaceX is one of two commercial companies along with Boeing working with NASA to take over launches to the ISS. SpaceX Crew Dragon will launch atop a Falcon 9 rocket from Kennedy Space Centre, and its next mission aims to be the first to bring humans back into space from Florida since the Space Shuttle programme ended in 2011.
The video shows a simulation of astronauts boarding Crew Dragon from the gantry at Launch Complex 39A, blasting off on its way to the space station and making its parachute-assisted landing on its return to Earth.
“Crew Dragon should be physically ready & at the Cape in Feb, but completing all safety reviews will probably take a few more months,” Musk said on his Twitter account.
Both SpaceX Crew Dragon and the Boeing CST-100 Starliner have been hit with delays that have pushed NASA’s desires for crewed missions from U.S. soil back more than two years.
SpaceX successfully sent an uncrewed capsule on a test launch to the ISS last spring, but the same capsule exploded during a post-launch test in April. It wasn’t until November that SpaceX was able to complete static fire tests to a replacement Crew Dragon.
Boeing attempted its first uncrewed launch of Starliner earlier in December, but while it was able to launch and land successfully, it never made it to the space station because of an issue with a timing system that placed Starliner in the wrong orbit.
SpaceX still has an in-flight abort test to prove its Crew Dragon can successfully escape from the Falcon 9 rocket in the case of a midair flight problem, but no date has been set for that.
And no set date has been chosen for each of the companies’ first crewed test flights.
If and when both companies successfully achieve their crewed test flights to the ISS, they will then begin regular transport flights of astronauts taking over from the current method, hitching rides from Kazakhstan on Russian Soyuz capsules.
The contract calls for 12 total missions to the ISS, six from SpaceX and six from Boeing.
