NASA/Keegan Barber
NASA astronaut Nick Haag and Russian cosmonaut Alexander Gorbunov will blast off from Florida’s Space Coast on Saturday aboard SpaceX’s Dragon spacecraft for a five-month expedition aboard the International Space Station.
The two-person crew launched from the top of SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket at 1:17 p.m. EDT (17:17 UTC) and took advantage of a break in rough weather to begin their ascent into space. Nine kerosene-fueled Merlin engines will power the first stage of the flight in a northeast orbit from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, before the booster detaches and returns for landing at Cape Canaveral, where the Falcon 9 upper stage will fly to SpaceX Accelerated the Crew Dragon. freedom A spacecraft is launched into orbit.
“It was a fun journey,” Haig said after arriving in space. After a seemingly perfect launch, Hague and Gorbunov are scheduled to arrive at the space station around 5:30 pm EDT (2130 UTC) on Sunday.
vacant seat
This is SpaceX’s 15th crew mission since 2020 and SpaceX’s 10th astronaut launch for NASA, but Saturday’s launch was unusual in several ways.
“Each of our missions presents unique challenges, and I think this one will be memorable for many,” said Ken Bowersox, NASA’s associate administrator for space operations.
First, SpaceX’s Crew Dragon spacecraft sent only two astronauts into orbit instead of the usual four. The mission, known as Crew-9, originally included Hague, Gorbunov, commander Zena Cardman, and NASA astronaut Stephanie Wilson.
However, problems with the test flight of Boeing’s Starliner spacecraft caused a major setback to NASA’s plans. The Starliner mission launched in June with NASA astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams. Boeing’s spacecraft reached the space station, but thruster failures and helium leaks plagued the mission, and NASA officials decided last month that it was too dangerous for the crew to return to Earth on the Starliner.
NASA selected SpaceX and Boeing for a multibillion-dollar commercial crew contract in 2014, with the companies responsible for developing the crewed spacecraft that will shuttle astronauts to and from the International Space Station. SpaceX flew its first astronaut in 2020, and Boeing achieved the same milestone with a test flight launched in June.
Ultimately, the Starliner spacecraft successfully landed in New Mexico on September 6 and returned safely to Earth. However, Wilmore and Williams were left stranded on the space station with a long-term laboratory crew of seven astronauts and astronauts. Space station crews installed two temporary foam seats inside the SpaceX Dragon spacecraft currently docked at the outpost, and Starliner astronauts would need to evacuate the facility in case of an emergency. I ended up getting on the train and going home.
NASA/Kim Shiflett
This is a temporary measure to allow Dragon spacecraft to return to Earth with six people instead of the usual four. NASA officials have decided to remove two astronauts from the next SpaceX crew mission to free up regular seats for Wilmore and Williams to fly home in February, when Crew-9 was already scheduled to end its mission. I decided to remove it.
The decision to return the Starliner spacecraft to Earth without a crew had several secondary effects on space station operations. Administrators at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston had to decide who would be removed from the Crew 9 mission and who would remain on the crew.
Nick Haig and Alexander Gorbunov ended up keeping their seats on Crew Flight 9. Haig originally trained as a Crew-9 pilot, and NASA chose him to replace Xena Cardman in command. Hague, a 49-year-old Space Force colonel, is a veteran of one long-duration mission to the International Space Station and a rare mid-flight launch abort in 2018 due to a failure on Russia’s Soyuz rocket. .
NASA announced the initial astronaut assignments for the Crew-9 mission in January. Mr. Cardman, a 36-year-old geobiologist, would have been the first novice astronaut with no test pilot experience to lead a NASA spaceflight. Stephanie Wilson, 58, who flew on the space shuttle three times, was the other astronaut removed from the Crew 9 mission.
Bowersox, who oversees NASA’s Space Flight Operations Directorate, said deciding who to fly Crew-9 was “a real close call.” “They were very serious about flying Xena, and in this situation it made sense to have someone who had at least one flight experience.”
Gorbunov, a 34-year-old Russian aerospace engineer on his first space flight, has moved into the cockpit of the Crew Dragon spacecraft, although he remains officially designated as a mission specialist. His remaining on the crew means Russian cosmonauts will be participating in U.S. crew missions, as well as NASA and the Russian space agency, which will provide seats for U.S. astronauts aboard Russia’s Soyuz flights to the space station. This was determined in advance by an international agreement between the two countries.
Bowersox announced that NASA will reassign Cardman and Wilson to future flights.
Operational flexibility
It was also the first launch of astronauts from SpaceX’s busiest launch pad, Space Launch Complex-40 (SLC-40) at Cape Canaveral. SpaceX plans to launch human spaceflight missions on its Crew Dragon spacecraft, including a tower more than 200 feet tall and a crew access arm that will allow astronauts to board the spacecraft on top of the Falcon 9 rocket. The launch pad was equipped with the necessary equipment to support the launch. .
SLC-40 was previously based on a “clean pad” architecture, with no structures for servicing or accessing the Falcon 9 rocket while it was vertical on the pad. SpaceX also installed a sliding chute to provide an emergency evacuation route from the launch pad for astronauts and ground personnel in the event of an emergency.
SpaceX built the crew tower last year in preparation for the launch of the Dragon cargo mission to the space station in March. Saturday’s launch will support SpaceX’s astronaut missions, which previously all departed from Launch Complex-39A (LC-39A) at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center, a few miles north of SLC-40. demonstrated the ability to
Bringing human spaceflight launch capabilities online with SLC-40 gives SpaceX and NASA additional flexibility in their schedules. For example, LC-39A remains the only launch pad configured to support the flight of SpaceX’s Falcon Heavy rocket. SpaceX is currently preparing the LC-39A to launch Falcon Heavy on October 10th as part of NASA’s European Clipper mission. The mission will leave Earth this year and will have just a few weeks until its destination, Jupiter, in 2030.
With SLC-40 certified for astronaut launches, the SpaceX and NASA teams can now support the Crew-9 and Europa Clipper missions without worrying about schedule conflicts. The Florida Spaceport currently has three launch pads certified for crew flights, two for SpaceX’s Dragon and one for Boeing’s Starliner, which NASA plans to fly to the moon late next year. The Artemis II mission will add a fourth launch pad for human evaluation.
“This is very exciting. It reflects not only our place in NASA’s space program, but also the capabilities that the United States has developed,” said Pam Melroy, NASA’s deputy administrator. I think so.”
Earlier this week, Haag and Gorbunov took part in a dress rehearsal for launch day, giving them a chance to familiarize themselves with SLC-40. The launch pad has the same functionality as the LC-39A, but the layout is slightly different. SpaceX also test-fired its Falcon 9 rocket Tuesday night, then lowered it horizontally and returned it to its hangar for storage as Hurricane Helen’s outer band passed through Central Florida.
Inside the hangar, SpaceX engineers found soot-like exhaust from the Falcon 9’s engines accumulating on the outside of the Dragon spacecraft during a test launch. Ground teams wiped soot from the spacecraft’s solar array and heat shield and repainted sections of the capsule’s radiator around the edge of Dragon’s trunk section before returning the craft to the launch pad on Friday.
“It’s important that the radiators radiate heat into space in the right way, so we had to apply a new coat of paint to get the correct emissivity, correct reflectance and absorption of solar radiation hitting the panels. ,” said Bill Gerstenmeyer, SpaceX vice president of manufacturing and flight reliability.
Gerstenmayer also outlined new backup features that will allow the Crew Dragon spacecraft to safely splash down in the event that all parachutes fail to deploy during the final descent to Earth. This includes using the capsule’s eight powerful SuperDraco thrusters. Typically used only when the launch is unlikely to be aborted, it fires for a few seconds and slows down the Dragon for a safe splashdown.
space x
“The way it works is if all the parachutes fail completely, the thrusters are basically the last ones to fire. This basically gives the crew a chance to land safely and get out of the vehicle.” said Gerstenmeyer. Therefore, it is not used in partial conditions. You can land with one chute. Landing is possible even if other failures occur in the chute system. However, this only happens if all four parachutes fail. ”
When SpaceX first designed its Crew Dragon spacecraft more than a decade ago, the company wanted to use its SuperDraco thrusters to allow the capsule to perform helicopter-like propulsive landings. Ultimately, SpaceX and NASA agreed to change to a more conventional parachute-assisted landing method.
The SuperDracos remained on board the Crew Dragon spacecraft to push the capsule out of the Falcon 9 rocket during a fatal launch failure. Eight high-thrust engines burn hydrazine and nitrogen tetroxide propellants, which burn when they come into contact with each other.
Gerstenmayer said the backup option had been enabled on some previous commercial Crew Dragon missions, but not on the NASA flight. This capability “provides a tolerable landing for the crew,” he added. “So this is a really serious emergency situation. Our philosophy is, even if it’s not fully certified, it gives the crew a better chance of getting out of a really, really bad situation than having a system that they don’t use.” I think so.”
Steve Stitch, NASA’s commercial crew program manager, said the emergency propulsion landing feature will be activated in preparation for the return of the Crew 8 mission, which has been at the space station since March. With the arrival of Hague and Gorbunov on Crew 9 and the extension of Wilmore and Williams’ mission, the Crew 8 mission is scheduled to depart from the space station and splash down in early October.
This article has been updated after confirming that the launch was successful.
