Category: NASA Astronauts

The two-stage SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket has flown 83 times for NASA and other customers. The vehicle made history in 2012 when it delivered Dragon into the correct orbit for rendezvous with the International Space Station, making SpaceX the first commercial company to visit the station. Since then, Falcon 9 has made numerous trips to space, delivering satellites to orbit as well as delivering and returning cargo from the space station for NASA. Click here to see a labeled Falcon 9 illustration.

Falcon 9, along with the Dragon spacecraft, was designed from the outset to deliver humans into space, a goal on the cusp of being achieved.

Falcon 9’s first stage incorporates nine Merlin engines and aluminum-lithium alloy tanks containing liquid oxygen (LOX) and rocket-grade kerosene (RP-1) propellant. Falcon 9 generates more than 1.7 million pounds of thrust at sea level but produces over 1.8 million pounds of thrust in the vacuum of space. The first-stage engines are gradually throttled near the end of first-stage flight to limit launch vehicle acceleration as the rocket’s mass decreases with the burning of fuel.

The rocket’s second stage relies on a single Merlin engine that also runs on LOX and RP-1.

Technical Overview

• Height: 70 meters or 229.6 feet
• Mass: 549,054 kilograms or 1,207,920 pounds
• Payload to Low Earth Orbit: 22,800 kilograms or 50,265 pounds
• Diameter: 3.7 meters or 12 feet

The Falcon 9 is the first orbital class rocket capable of reflight, and today, the first-stage booster will aim for a vertical landing on a SpaceX drone ship  “Of Course I Still Love You” waiting offshore in the Atlantic.

 

The distinctive blue-and-white Air Force One aircraft just flew near Kennedy Space Center’s Launch Complex 39A, affording U.S. President Trump, onboard the aircraft, a bird’s-eye view of the SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket and Crew Dragon spacecraft on the launch pad. Sealed inside the spacecraft are NASA astronauts Douglas Hurley and Robert Behnken, who are awaiting a 4:33 p.m. EDT liftoff on the agency’s SpaceX Demo-2 mission to the International Space Station – the first launch of American astronauts aboard an American rocket from American soil in nine years.

The hatch through which NASA’s SpaceX Demo-2 crew members entered the Crew Dragon spacecraft has been closed and a leak check is complete.

Launch of the SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket and Crew Dragon spacecraft carrying NASA astronauts Robert Behnken and Douglas Hurley remains scheduled for 4:33 p.m. EDT from Kennedy Space Center’s Launch Complex 39A. Teams continue to monitor weather conditions throughout the area.

NASA’s SpaceX Demo-2 mission will serve as an end-to-end flight test to validate the SpaceX crew transportation system, from launch to docking to splashdown. It is the final flight test for the system to be certified for regular crew flights to the station as part of NASA’s Commercial Crew Program.

Several NASA and SpaceX teams across the country have roles in today’s launch. SpaceX’s launch team is commanding the countdown from Firing Room 4 in Kennedy’s Launch Control Center, then will transfer control to the company’s mission control center in Hawthorne, California. Meanwhile, NASA teams at Kennedy and the agency’s Johnson Space Center in Houston are monitoring today’s activities.

The crew’s seats have been rotated into their reclining position for launch. Clocks continue to count toward liftoff of the SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket and Crew Dragon spacecraft carrying NASA astronauts Douglas Hurley and Robert Benhken. Launch of NASA’s SpaceX Demo-2 mission to the International Space Station is targeted for 4:33 p.m. EDT from Kennedy Space Center’s Launch Complex 39A.

The SpaceX Crew Dragon is about to be taken out for the ultimate test drive to the International Space Station.

The next-generation spacecraft is fully autonomous but also can be controlled manually if needed. During the Demo-2 mission, astronauts Robert Behnken and Douglas Hurley will validate that the spacecraft’s systems operate as expected – both autonomously and manually. Click here to see a labeled Crew Dragon illustration.

“We specifically, as part of this test flight, designed in some time in the preflight phase as well as closer to the space station so we can test out actual manual flying capability of the vehicle, just to see and verify that it handles the way we expect it to and the way the simulator shows it to fly,” Hurley said. “It’s a prudent part of our flight test, just like anything else, in case the eventuality happened for a future crew that needed to take over manually and fly spacecraft. So we’re just doing our part to test out all the different capabilities of Crew Dragon.”

The Crew Dragon has several features that set it apart from the company’s Cargo Dragon, which has made several flights to the orbiting laboratory to deliver cargo. Crew Dragon has an integrated launch escape system to carry the astronauts to safety in the unlikely event of an emergency; we’ll discuss that in more detail later in the countdown. SpaceX has completed a series of parachute tests, including several on the Mark III parachutes on today’s Crew Dragon to ensure a safe return to Earth for the crew.

Inside, the spacecraft’s life support system provides air and pressure, and maintains a comfortable temperature and humidity level. Its touchscreens have been tuned to operate with and without the SpaceX spacesuit gloves, and the control system has been thoroughly tested during the hundreds of hours of training and joint simulations with the crew in both suited and non-suited situations to demonstrate full functionality over the entire expected operating range of Crew Dragon.

Behnken and Hurley have been heavily involved in the development of the Crew Dragon and were careful to provide input that would benefit all future crews to fly aboard the spacecraft.

“We’ve tried very hard to not make it a vehicle that just Bob likes, or just Doug likes; this is a vehicle for everybody after us who’s going to fly it,” Behnken said. “You’re trying to make a vehicle that is easy to operate in space, easy to interpret what it’s telling you, easy to get in and get out of, all those things that you need to do that need to be well-oiled for a space vehicle.”

NASA’s SpaceX Demo-2 astronauts Robert Behnken and Douglas Hurley are beginning a series of communications checks – “comm checks” – with various key members of the launch and mission teams, including SpaceX Launch Director Mike Taylor and Chief Engineer Bala Ramamurthy, both in Firing Room 4 in Kennedy’s Launch Control Center; and the SpaceX Crew Operations and Resources Engineer (CORE).

There will be several COREs communicating with the crew throughout the mission, including Jay Aranha, SpaceX CORE for ingress and ascent; Anna Menon, SpaceX CORE for Crew Dragon’s approach to and departure from the International Space Station; Laura Crabtree, the CORE for free flight; and Mike Heiman, the SpaceX CORE for the crew’s return to Earth. The CORE engineers are located at SpaceX Mission Control in Hawthorne, California.

In the next several minutes, NASA astronauts Robert Behnken and Douglas Hurley will take the elevator up to the 255-foot level of the fixed service structure, then take a short flight of stairs to the crew access level, where they will cross the crew access arm – the walkway from the fixed service structure over to the White Room and the waiting SpaceX Crew Dragon spacecraft.