A SpaceX Dragon capsule carrying four astronauts returned to Earth early
Sunday (May 2) with an ocean splashdown off the Florida coast, successfully
completing the company's first full-fledged crewed mission to the
International Space Station.
The astronauts of SpaceX's Crew-1 mission for NASA splashed down safely in
the Gulf of Mexico near Panama City at 2:56 a.m. EDT (0656 GMT), with a
recovery ship swiftly retrieving their Crew Dragon capsule from the sea. The
spacecraft landed on target, marking the first nighttime splashdown of a
U.S. crewed flight in 53 years. The last was NASA's Apollo 8 moon mission on
Dec. 27, 1968.
"Dragon, on behalf of NASA and SpaceX teams, we welcome you back to planet
Earth and thanks for flying SpaceX. For those of you enrolled in our
frequent flier program, you've earned 68 million miles [109 million
kilometers] on this voyage," a SpaceX crew operations and resources engineer
told the Crew-1 astronauts after splashdown.
"It is good to be back on planet Earth," replied NASA astronaut Mike
Hopkins, commander of the Crew-1 mission. "We'll take those miles. Are they
transferable?"
The capsule left the space station on late Saturday (May 1) after bad
weather at the mission's main splashdown site twice delayed the crew's
return.
Crew-1 marked SpaceX's second crewed flight to the space station and its
first such flight to last for six months. The mission launched into orbit
Nov. 15.
SpaceX's first astronaut mission, Demo-2 in May 2020, was a two-month test
flight that carried two astronauts to the station. Although SpaceX's third
crewed mission has launched already, today's return marked only the second
crewed splashdown for the program. That third flight, called Crew-2, won't
splash down until later this year.
This Crew-1 Dragon capsule, which astronauts nicknamed Resilience, carried
Hopkins and his fellow NASA astronauts Victor Glover and Shannon Walker, as
well as Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) astronaut Soichi Noguchi.
The capsule splashed into the Gulf of Mexico south of Panama City, Florida,
where it was soon met by SpaceX recovery crews, who had to work under a
cloak of darkness.
"The vehicle is certified to land during the day or night, so there's not an
issue with the vehicle itself," Steve Stitch, NASA's Commercial Crew program
manager, said during live NASA commentary before splashdown. "And we've been
practicing with the recovery crews to land in day or night."
Stitch said SpaceX also recovered an uncrewed Dragon cargo ship from the
ocean at night in January of this year. "The SpaceX crew recovered that
vehicle at night, and the Crew and Cargo Dragons are pretty much identical,"
he said. "So we're well-prepared for this opportunity."
The process went more smoothly than the Demo-2 crew recovery, in August
2020, when NASA astronauts Doug Hurley and Bob Behnken were met by a small
flotilla of private boats. This time, SpaceX and the Coast Guard refined
safety procedures to ensure no civilians came too close to the capsule, just
in case it leaked fuel.
Crew-1 overlapped for about a week in orbit with its successor, the
four-astronaut Crew-2 mission. That crew includes NASA astronauts Shane
Kimbrough and Megan McArthur, JAXA astronaut Akihiko Hoshide and European
Space Agency astronaut Thomas Pesquet. The quartet will remain in orbit
until the fall, when the Crew-3 mission will head to space to take their
place.
SpaceX is one of two commercial companies with NASA contracts to fly
astronauts in space. The other company, Boeing, is developing its Starliner
crew capsule for NASA missions. That vehicle is expected to fly on a second
uncrewed test flight later this year but has not yet flown astronauts.
Meanwhile, SpaceX's Crew-3 mission for NASA will launch in the fall. The
company will also launch four civilians on a private Crew Dragon mission,
called Inspiration4, funded by American billionaire Jared Isaacman. That
mission is scheduled to launch Sept. 15 on the Crew Dragon Resilience, the
same one used by the Crew-1 astronauts, but will not visit the International
Space Station.
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