China News Agency, Houston, April 23 (Reporter Zeng Jingning) At 5:49 am EST on April 23, SpaceX will launch a manned "Dragon" spacecraft carrying 4 astronauts And sent into the earth's orbit.
This is the company's second commercial manned mission (Crew-2) for NASA.
According to a report from the science and technology website "Space", on the 23rd, the manned "Dragon" spacecraft was launched by the "Falcon 9" rocket from launch pad 39 of the Kennedy Space Center in Florida and into earth orbit.
About 9 minutes after the rocket was launched, its first stage booster returned to the recovery deck on the Earth’s Atlantic Ocean.
This is the second of the six commercial manned missions signed between SpaceX and NASA.
In this mission, the manned "Dragon" spacecraft will fly in orbit for approximately 23.5 hours and will automatically dock with the International Space Station at 5:10 am Eastern Time on the 24th.
The astronauts will stay there for 6 months for scientific research and maintenance work, and they plan to return to Earth before October 31.
NASA stated in a press release that day that there were four highlights of this mission.
First, this is the first time that astronauts from NASA, the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA), and the European Space Agency (ESA) have jointly performed a space mission in more than 20 years. The four astronauts are American astronaut Shane King. Bro (commander of this mission), Megan MacArthur, French astronaut Thomas Pesquet, and Japanese astronaut Akihiko Hoshide.
Second, for the first time, the recovered manned "Dragon" spacecraft was used for manned space missions.
This manned "Dragon" spacecraft named "Endeavour" carried two American astronauts to the International Space Station to perform SpaceX's commercial manned test mission (Demo-2) in May 2020, and returned to Earth in August of the same year. .
In order to realize the secondary use of the recovered spacecraft, SpaceX replaced some valves and heat shields on the spacecraft, and installed new parachutes.
Third, after the "Endeavour" astronauts land on the International Space Station, the number of people on the space station will reach 11 (including 3 astronauts on the "Expedition 65" mission on the International Space Station), spending about 5 days in total.
The maximum passenger capacity of the International Space Station is 6 astronauts.
Since the completion of the test mission (Demo-2), in November 2020, SpaceX carried out its first commercial manned mission (Crew-1) and transported 4 astronauts to the International Space Station. They will return next Wednesday (28th) Earth.
Fourth, for the first time, two commercial manned "Dragon" spacecraft will dock at the International Space Station at the same time.
It is worth mentioning that SpaceX plans to perform a three-day commercial manned mission to orbit the earth in September this year. This mission will use the recovered manned "Dragon" spacecraft to carry four ordinary people who are not astronauts into space.
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