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SpaceX crew Dragon to bring 2 NASA astronauts home

Last Updated 01 August 2020, 21:04 IST

If a hurricane does not get in the way, two astronauts who took the first commercial trip to orbit will return home Sunday.

Astronauts Robert L. Behnken and Douglas G. Hurley traveled to the International Space Station in May aboard a Crew Dragon capsule built and run by SpaceX, the private rocket company started by Elon Musk.

The Crew Dragon is scheduled to undock from the space station at about 7:34 p.m. EDT on Saturday and splashdown in the Gulf of Mexico off Pensacola, Florida, at 2:41 p.m. EDT on Sunday, Jim Bridenstine, the NASA administrator, announced on Twitter.

A safe return would open up more trips to and from orbit for future astronaut crews, and possibly space tourists, aboard the spacecraft.

Hurricane Isaias is forecast to sweep up along the Atlantic coast of Florida over the weekend. NASA and SpaceX have seven splashdown sites in the Gulf of Mexico and the Atlantic, but the track of Isaias ruled out the three in the Atlantic.

The departure could still be pushed back to Sunday night with a splashdown Monday afternoon. NASA and SpaceX will make a final decision around 5 p.m. EDT whether to proceed with the undocking.

“We have confidence that the teams on the ground are, of course, watching that much more closely than we are,” Behnken said during a news conference Friday, “and we won’t leave the space station without some good landing opportunities in front of us, good splashdown weather in front of us.”

Q: How can I watch the return of the astronauts?

A: NASA Television broadcast a farewell ceremony Saturday morning. Coverage of the undocking will begin at 5:15 p.m. and is to continue through splashdown. The coverage would be pushed back if weather delays the departure.

Q: Why does Hurricane Isaias affect the departure?

A: The storm complicates when and where splashdown can take place. At the splashdown site, winds must be less than 10 mph for the capsule to land safely. There are additional constraints on waves, rain and lightning. In addition, helicopters that take part in the recovery of the capsule must be able to fly and land safely.

The first landing opportunity will aim for only the primary site, Pensacola. If weather there is inconsistent with the rules, the capsule and the astronauts will remain in orbit for another day or two, and managers will consider the backup site, which is Panama City, Florida.

Q: What will happen after they leave the station?

A: After undocking Saturday night, the spacecraft will perform a series of maneuvers, first firing the engines several times to move away from the space station and, a few hour hours later, to line up the spacecraft with the splashdown zone.

For most of the trip, Behnken and Hurley will be sleeping. Their schedule sets aside 10 hours of shut-eye.

Any return journey that exceeds six hours has to be long enough for the crew to get some sleep between undocking and splashdown, Daniel Huot, a NASA spokesman, said in an email.

Otherwise, because of the extended process that leads up to undocking, the crew would end up working more than 20 hours straight, “which is not safe for dynamic operations like water splashdown and recovery,” Huot said.

Just before a final burn that will drop the Crew Dragon out of orbit Sunday afternoon, it will jettison the bottom part of the spacecraft, known as the trunk, which will then burn up in the atmosphere.

At reentry, the Crew Dragon will be traveling at about 17,500 mph. Two small parachutes will deploy at an altitude of 18,000 feet when the spacecraft has already been slowed by Earth’s atmosphere to about 350 mph. The four main parachutes deploy at an altitude of about 6,000 feet.

Once the capsule splashes in the water, it is expected to take 45 to 60 minutes to pluck them out.

Q: Why is the return trip an important part of the Crew Dragon’s first flight?

A: After launch, reentry through Earth’s atmosphere is the second most dangerous phase of spaceflight. Friction of air rushing past will heat the bottom of the capsule to about 3,500 degrees Fahrenheit. A test flight of the Crew Dragon last year successfully splashed down, so engineers know the system works.

A successful conclusion to the trip opens the door to more people flying to space. Some companies have already announced plans to use Crew Dragons to lift wealthy tourists to orbit.

In the past, NASA astronauts launched on spacecraft like the Saturn 5 moon rocket and the space shuttles that NASA itself operated. After the retirement of the space shuttles in 2011, NASA had to rely on Russia, buying seats on the Soyuz capsules for trips to and from orbit.

Under the Obama administration, NASA hired two companies, SpaceX and Boeing, to build spacecraft to take astronauts to the space station. NASA financed much of the work to develop the spacecraft but will now buy rides at fixed prices. For SpaceX, the trip by Behnken and Hurley — the first launch of astronauts from American soil since the last space shuttle flight — was the last major demonstration needed before NASA officially certifies that the Crew Dragon is ready to begin regular flights.

Q: Who are the astronauts?

A: Behnken and Hurley have been friends and colleagues since both were selected by NASA to be astronauts in 2000.

Both men have backgrounds as military test pilots and each has flown twice before on space shuttle missions, although this is the first time they have worked together on a mission. Hurley flew on the space shuttle’s final mission in 2011.

In 2015, they were among the astronauts chosen to work with Boeing and SpaceX on the commercial space vehicles that the companies were developing. In 2018, they were assigned to the first SpaceX flight.

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(Published 01 August 2020, 21:04 IST)

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