SpaceX: Astronauts, capsule arrive at space station

It is the first time a privately built and owned spacecraft has carried crew to the orbiting lab.

Dragon Capsule
SpaceX launched the Dragon from Kennedy Space Center on Saturday afternoon [Screengrab: NASA video]

SpaceX delivered two astronauts to the International Space Station for NASA on Sunday, following up an historic liftoff with an equally smooth docking in yet another first for Elon Musk’s company.

With test pilots Doug Hurley and Bob Behnken poised to take over manual control if necessary, the SpaceX Dragon capsule pulled up to the station and docked automatically, with no assistance needed.

“We copy, docking is complete,” said a member of the crew.

“It’s been a real honour to be a small part of this nine-year endeavour since the last time a United States spaceship has docked with the International Space Station.”

It was the first time a privately built and owned spacecraft carried astronauts to the orbiting lab in its nearly 20 years. NASA considers this the opening volley in a business revolution encircling Earth and eventually stretching to the Moon and Mars.

The docking occurred just 19 hours after a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket blasted off on Saturday afternoon from Kennedy Space Center, the US’s first astronaut launch to orbit from home soil in nearly a decade.

Thousands jammed surrounding beaches, bridges and towns to watch as SpaceX ended a nine-year launch drought for NASA.

A few hours before docking, the Dragon riders reported that the capsule was performing beautifully. Just in case, they slipped back into their pressurised launch suits and helmets for the rendezvous.

The three space station residents kept cameras trained on the incoming capsule for the benefit of flight controllers at SpaceX headquarters in Hawthorne, California, and NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston.

Gleaming in the sunlight, the Dragon was easily visible from a few miles out, its nose cone open and exposing its docking hook and a blinking light. The capsule loomed ever larger on live NASA TV as it closed the gap.

Hurley and Behnken took over the controls and did a little piloting less than 200 yards (metres) out as part of the test flight, before putting it back into automatic for the final approach. Hurley said the capsule handled “really well, very crisp”.

SpaceX and NASA officials had held off on any celebrations until after Sunday morning’s docking – and possibly not until the two astronauts are back on Earth sometime this summer.

NASA has yet to decide how long Hurley and Behnken will spend at the space station, somewhere between one and four months. While they are there, the Dragon test pilots will join the one US and two Russian station residents in performing experiments and possibly spacewalks to install fresh station batteries.

In a show-and-tell earlier on Sunday, the astronauts gave a quick tour of the Dragon’s sparkling clean interior, quite spacious for a capsule. They said the liftoff was pretty bumpy and dynamic, nothing the simulators could have mimicked.

The blue-sequined dinosaur named Tremor who was also on board – selected by the astronauts’ sons to make the trip to space – was also in good shape, Behnken assured viewers. Tremor was going to join Earthy, a plush globe delivered to the space station on last year’s test flight of a crewless crew Dragon. Behnken said both toys would return to Earth with them at mission’s end.

An old-style capsule splashdown is planned. After liftoff, Musk told reporters that the capsule’s return would be more dangerous in some ways than its launch. Even so, getting the two astronauts safely to orbit and then to the space station had everyone breathing huge sighs of relief.

As always, Musk was looking ahead. “This is hopefully the first step on a journey toward a civilisation on Mars,” he said on Saturday evening.

Source: News Agencies