SpaceX just launched its longest and most ambitious NASA mission to date. Here's what to expect from liftoff to landing.
SpaceX; NASA; Samantha Lee/Business Insider
- SpaceX's Crew-1 mission launched from the Kennedy Space Center at 7:27 p.m. ET on Sunday, rocketing four astronauts into orbit for a half-year spaceflight.
- The Crew Dragon spaceship is now on its way to the International Space Station, where it will attempt to dock on Monday night.
- Crew-1 is the first full-length mission NASA has contracted from Elon Musk's company, and it's poised to be the longest-duration human spaceflight ever launched from US soil.
- Here's what to expect as SpaceX's Crew Dragon spaceship flies to the International Space Station and back.
- Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.
SpaceX just launched its most important NASA mission yet: On Sunday, Elon Musk's rocket company catapulted four astronauts into Earth's orbit on its Crew Dragon spaceship.
Crew-1, as the flight is called, will be SpaceX's first full-length mission for NASA. It's also the company's second time launching people and the longest-duration human space mission ever launched from US soil. The current record, 84 days, has held since the longest Skylab mission more than 45 years ago.
Now the spaceship is set to orbit Earth for about 27 hours before docking to the International Space Station. The astronauts are expected to stay aboard the floating laboratory for about half a year.
"We are ready for this launch. We are ready for the six months of work that is waiting for us on board the International Space Station, and we are ready for the return," NASA astronaut Mike Hopkins, who commands the mission, told reporters during a pre-launch news conference.
Hopkins and his fellow crew members — NASA astronauts Victor Glover and Shannon Walker, as well as Japanese Aerospace Agency astronaut Soichi Noguchi — were scheduled to lift off Saturday evening, but NASA and SpaceX decided to delay due to weather conditions.
Rain and clouds threatened to close in on the mission all day Sunday, with a 50/50 chance of violating the weather requirements for launch. But the skies remained clear as SpaceX pumped the Falcon 9 with propellant and the rocket roared past the launchpad.
Here's how their flight should play out and what to expect at each stage of the mission.
The rocket launched from the Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida at 7:27 p.m. ET.
Glover is piloting the Crew Dragon capsule, named Resilience, and Hopkins is the commander.SpaceX
Walker and Noguchi are mission specialists.
The Crew-1 mission is the first of six round-trip astronaut flights that NASA has contracted from SpaceX.Jim Bridenstine/NASA
The flights mark NASA's return to human spaceflight after the gap created when the Space Shuttle program ended in 2011.
The astronauts arrived in Cape Canaveral on Sunday, where they busied themselves with pre-launch preparations."The nerves start to really pile on as you get closer to launch," Hopkins said.
But the rehearsals, briefings, and reviews make a welcome distraction, he added: "I think that helps keep the nerves down a little bit as well, because you're just kind of going like clockwork through the procedure and the timeline."
This will be Glover's first spaceflight. "I really look forward to every single bit of it," he told Business Insider. "Every time I do something in space, it will be the first time."David J. Phillip/AP
"I did not imagine that I would get to do what I'm doing," he added. "To be the pilot of this spacecraft is just such an honor and responsibility."
The Crew Dragon arrived at the Kennedy Space Center three days before the astronauts. Then it was secured on top of the Falcon 9 rocket.The reusable, two-stage rocket is 230 feet tall and weighs over 1.2 million pounds.
The whole thing was rolled onto the launchpad and lifted into a vertical position on Monday night and Tuesday morning.The launchpad's crew access arm is where the astronauts will go to climb into the Crew Dragon on launch day.
NASA official certified SpaceX's launch system — including its Falcon 9 rocket and Crew Dragon spaceship — after the completion of a two-day flight-readiness review.SpaceX via NASA
The launch system had ticked off the last requirements to be fully certified for routine use by NASA astronauts — the first time a commercial system has received that recognition.
But the space company has been working on the launch system for nearly a decade, initially with no government funding. Its earliest Falcon 9 rocket prototype, known as Grasshopper, began test flights in 2012.
NASA's approval kicked off a series of preparations for launch, including a static-fire test on Wednesday.NASA
For static fire, SpaceX pumped super-chilled liquid oxygen and kerosene fuel into the rocket's tanks. Then it fired the rocket booster's nine Merlin engines for seven seconds to ensure there were no problems.
The astronauts and support teams carried out a dress rehearsal on Thursday.Hopkins, Glover, Walker, and Noguchi suited up and drove out to the launchpad to practice boarding the Crew Dragon.
NASA and SpaceX convened again on Friday to review everything before signing off on the launch. That's when they decided to push liftoff back from Saturday to Sunday.Winds had made conditions unsuitable to get a crucial SpaceX boat out to sea on time. After the first-stage Falcon 9 booster separates from the rocket, the booster returns to Earth and lands on the boat to re-launch another day.
With a Sunday liftoff in sight, things proceeded much like SpaceX's first astronaut launch, called Demo-2.That mission rocketed NASA astronauts Bob Behnken and Doug Hurley to the ISS on a Crew Dragon capsule.
On launch day, the astronauts suited up, said goodbye to their families, and drove to the launchpad in Teslas."I think my family is excited. And that's exciting for me, because my goal in this entire endeavor was to make sure that it continued to be a family adventure," Glover said on a NASA podcast in October.
They took an elevator up to the crew-access arm, then climbed into the Crew Dragon.NASA TV
A team helped strap the crew members into their seats.
Mission managers initially feared a launch delay after detecting a small leak during a pressurization test of Crew Dragon.NASA TV
But the workers solved the problem by opening the hatch, finding and cleaning out a piece of debris, and resealing the space capsule's rectangular door. SpaceX then pressed toward launch.
Then the astronauts waited for the rocket to be filled with fuel — perhaps the longest 35 minutes of their lives.NASA TV
Behnken and Hurley said there's a distinct rumble once the rocket is full, Noguchi told reporters on Monday.
"I'm really anxious to feel that vibration," he said.
Once it's fueled the Falcon 9's Merlin engines roared to life, spewing fire and smoke, heaved the rocket off the launchpad.Lift-off is instantaneous, meaning it must occur at the precise second it's scheduled. Waiting any longer would allow the ultracold propellant to warm up, expand, and boil off — and fuel loss increases the risk of a dangerous rocket failure. So if there were any delay, SpaceX would have been forced to try again another day.
The force of the launch pressed the astronauts into their seats as the Falcon 9 spent the next nine minutes accelerating Crew Dragon to 17,500 mph.SpaceX via Getty Images
That's about 10 times as fast as a bullet, and the speed required to orbit (or endlessly freefall around) Earth at the space station's altitude.
If there had been a major problem with the rocket en route to orbit, an escape system is designed to automatically pull Crew Dragon to safety.SpaceX showed the system works in January by launching a Crew Dragon atop a Falcon 9 rocket that was programmed to fail and explode in mid-air. During the most strenuous part of the flight, the ship — empty save for a mannequin — safely flew away from the doomed rocket.
Once the Falcon 9 rocket booster expendec most of its fuel, it detached from the upper stage and landed itself on a boat at sea. That way, it can be reused to fly another day.The Crew Dragon continued on to low-Earth orbit.
Now that they're orbit, the astronauts have 27 hours to roam the Crew Dragon's cabin.They will also get some sleep for the big day ahead.
Late Monday evening, the Crew Dragon capsule should edge close to the ISS.SpaceX and NASA expect the Crew Dragon to perform a series of automated maneuvers to dock to the station around 11 p.m. ET on Monday.
After docking, Kate Rubins, the NASA astronaut currently on the ISS, will greet the new crew.NASA
"I have some great friends flying on that vehicle, so I'm going to be pretty happy to open the hatch and welcome them to the space station," she told Business Insider.
Russian cosmonauts Sergey Ryzhikov and Sergey Kud-Sverchkov will also be in tow to welcome Crew-1 to the football-field-size laboratory.
The new arrivals will live and work on the station for a full rotation of about six months. The Crew Dragon will stay docked the entire time.That will make Crew-1 the longest human spaceflight the US has ever launched. Russia's Soyuz missions have regularly achieved such mission durations for decades.
Behnken and Hurley, by contrast, only stayed for two months. But new upgrades will allow the Crew Dragon to stay in orbit for up to 210 days without its solar panels degrading in the harsh environment of space.
Eventually, the Crew-1 astronauts will climb back inside the Crew Dragon then return to Earth.As it plows through the atmosphere, the spaceship's heat shield should deflect and absorb superheated plasma that can reach 3,500 degrees Fahrenheit.
"It felt like we were inside of an animal," Behnken said of the Crew Dragon's 17,500 mph dive.
If all goes well, the capsule will deploy its parachutes and gently splash into the ocean.SpaceX and NASA are targeting either the Atlantic Ocean or the Gulf of Mexico off Florida's coast or for the Crew-1 splashdown.
Once the Crew Dragon capsule is bobbing in the water, recovery boats will drive out to greet them.Following Demo-2's splashdown in August, hordes of onlookers in motorboats swarmed the capsule, alarming mission managers and the US Coast Guard.
"Numerous boaters ignored the Coast Guard crews' requests and decided to encroach the area, putting themselves and those involved in the operation in potential danger," the Coast Guard said in a statement to CBS on August 2.
Bridenstine pledged that NASA would "do a better job" of clearing boats for future water landings, including Crew-1's.
Crew-1 is the fruit of NASA's Commercial Crew Program, which the Obama administration funded in 2010 to restore the agency's human spaceflight capabilities through partnerships with companies.The government has spent more than $6 billion toward the effort, according to The Planetary Society.
Since the Space Shuttle program ended in 2011, NASA had been relying on Russian Soyuz rockets to transport its astronauts.Soyuz has been the only option for the world's space agencies for nearly a decade. NASA opted to fund commercial spaceflight programs in order to provide more alternatives.
What's more, Soyuz has gotten increasingly expensive. One seat can cost up to $90 million. A seat on Crew Dragon, meanwhile, is projected to cost $55 million(though that does not count the funding NASA dished out to develop the spaceship).
The Commercial Crew Program is also funding the development of a new spaceship from Boeing, the CST-100 Starliner.The company has launched an uncrewed test mission of that capsule, but a software error caused a clock misalignment and the spaceship was unable to dock with the ISS.
Boeing plans to launch a follow-up, uncrewed Starliner demo in early 2021. Its first crewed flight won't happen until later that year.
Shuttling more NASA astronauts to the ISS will allow the US to do more research in space. "I think they're going to keep us pretty busy," Hopkins said during the press call."It's going to be exciting to see how much work we're going to be able to get done while we're there," Hopkins added.
But the space station might end up with more astronauts than it has bedrooms. So Hopkins might sleep inside the Crew Dragon capsule.
With the Crew-1 mission, SpaceX hopes to prove that its spaceflight capabilities rival those of government-led programs – further cementing its leadership in the industry.SpaceX leads the pack of commercial enterprises supported by NASA. The agency is shifting away from its role as mission controller to become a paying customer.
"NASA's partnership with American private industry is changing the arc of human spaceflight history," Phil McAlister, director of commercial spaceflight development at NASA, said on Tuesday. "We are truly in the beginning of a new era of human spaceflight."
This post has been updated with new information. It was originally published November 13, 2020.
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