This Friday morning, Thomas Pesquet and the rest of the crew of SpaceX's Crew Dragon 2 space shuttle take off from Florida.
Between Elon Musk's company shuttle and Soyuz, the one used for years, there are many differences.
Beyond the very Hollywood design of the American shuttle, there are also technical differences, or even of capacity, of travel time for example.
As in 2016, this Friday at 11:49 a.m., French astronaut Thomas Pesquet will leave Earth to reach space and settle comfortably for six months aboard the International Space Station.
But to join his new roommate 'in orbit, 408 km above our planet, the journey will certainly seem different.
Admittedly, this is not the first time that he will experience a launch, but the journey will still have a different flavor because it will be done aboard SpaceX's Crew Dragon ship and no longer the Soyuz capsule.
We had fun playing the game of the seven differences between these two Rolls Royces of space transporters, which, if they have the same objective, are sometimes light years away.
Soyuz, and its long experience in space flights
The first Soyuz space flight with a cosmonaut on board dates from April 21, 1967, precisely 54 years. Admittedly, it was a resounding failure since Valdimir Komarov, who had taken place on board, died during the crash of the capsule. But since then, the Russian spacecraft has become a benchmark for serving low earth orbit, and space stations, from Salyut to the ISS, via Mir, with no less than 143 space flights on the clock.
Besides, SpaceX is a youngster with its three orbital flights of its Crew Dragon shuttle, two of which are crewed.
The most recent docked on November 17 at the ISS.
“This experience is one of the fundamental differences.
But for Soyuz, it is also a difficulty, because everything gets old.
For its part, SpaceX has made several launches in refueling mode, it's a reassuring experience, ”notes Philippe Droneau, director of missions at the Cité de l'Espace, who will broadcast the launch of Crew Dragon 2 live.
A question of places
“The Soyuz consists of two volumes.
The public does not realize this as the photos of the takeoffs are always taken from the cockpit.
But there is, just above, a living space where you can eat, sleep ... The Crew Dragon has only one volume, but more spacious so that does not change much in the end ”, Thomas Pesquet assured Tuesday, a few hours before his departure.
If the two ships have a cargo version and can take a lot of supplies, the American version instead of carrying four passengers when they can only be three aboard Soyuz.
Same trip, but longer
If its capacity is greater, the Crew Dragon loses ground on travel time.
To reach Earth's orbit, there are at each launch eight long minutes where it shakes.
After that, if the Russian spacecraft will reach the ISS on average in six hours, SpaceX puts four times as much.
Thomas Pesquet and his astronaut acolytes will dock at the station on Saturday noon, twenty-four hours after their departure from Florida.
Thanks to regular impulses and clever calculations, the Russians have managed to improve their performance in this area.
In October 2020, they even managed a master stroke by beating a record and reaching the ISS in three hours and eight minutes, shorter than a one-way TGV trip between Paris and Marseille.
From buttons to touch screens
The few astronauts who made the trip in the two space shuttles are also making a technological leap, from the 1970s to the 21st century.
"It's the same difference as between an electric car of the latest generation and an old car with a manual gearbox ...", had compared Thomas Pesquet in an interview given to
Le Monde
.
And this is particularly the case at the level of the dashboard.
In the Soyuz capsule, we are still in the air of buttons and at all manual when SpaceX uses touch screens.
The Crew Dragon capsule is also more automated.
"In Soyuz, there are more actions to be carried out, it remains more complicated", indicates Philippe Droneau.
Landing versus Landing
Everyone remembers this capsule which lands with its large parachute on the virgin steppes of Kazakhstan.
It has not changed for more than fifty years, the Soyuz capsule is launched from the Baikonur cosmodrome.
And on her return, nearly 3:30 hours after undocking from the Space Station, she landed in the middle of nowhere, on green grass or frozen ground depending on the season, without an audience or trumpets.
With SpaceX, the sensations of entering the atmosphere are the same for astronauts.
But instead of landing on the ground, it is at sea that the astronauts find this good old Earth.
Last August, when there had been no American water landing since 1975, the Crew Dragon capsule with Douglas Hurley and Robert Behnken on board plunged in the Gulf of Mexico, before being recovered by a boat .
Goodbye Kazakh hats, long live the Tesla
Still as white as a sheet after having been passed through a washing machine on his return to Earth, Thomas Pesquet saw himself wearing a hat from Kazakhstan.
And this is just one of the many traditions that are followed to the letter by the astronauts who board Soyuz.
Before departure, they have the right to plant a tree, participate in a flag ceremony or be blessed by an Orthodox priest.
But not the right to see the pitcher.
D-5: In Baikonur, the crew is not supposed to see their rocket before the day of take-off ... but here the tradition is different!
We were lucky enough to arrive at @NASAKennedy just as the @SpaceX Falcon 9 was vertical on the launch pad.
#MissionAlpha pic.twitter.com/vZiCMqttX4
- Thomas Pesquet (@Thom_astro) April 17, 2021
So many “charms” that are now essential. “Among the Russians there is a very complex tradition, each hour is codified, there is almost a liturgy of thefts. On the American side, it is more open and even more for SpaceX because they are the first astronauts to experience the launches. They are the ones who are creating the tradition, ”insists Philippe Droneau of the Cité de l'Espace.
If there is folklore on the Russian side, it feels more like a futuristic movie at SpaceX, with director Elon Musk.
Astronauts arrive in Tesla and wear suits that might not go out of style in a superhero movie.
It must be said that the boss of SpaceX called on the Hollywood costume designer José Fernandez, who designed the clothes of the Fantastic Four or some X-Men.
A concern for aesthetics, for the pretty, so that the feat is also a spectacle.
From public to private
Another major difference may lie in the operator of this space adventure.
On the one hand, the Russian space agency Roscosmos which offers a national transport system, therefore public.
And on the other hand, Elon Musk's private company SpaceX, which operates the launches on behalf of NASA with its Falcon 9 rockets and has been able to spur traditional players in the space world.
Our file on Thomas Pesquet
In addition to this, you need to know more about it.
"So that makes a big difference in the use of shuttles, this year SpaceX will fly a crew made up exclusively of civilians in its spacecraft, four people who are not astronauts, it is a form of privatization of low orbit », Explains Philippe Droneau.
Something still unthinkable for classic space agencies.
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