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SpaceX to Launch First Commercial Crew Rotation Mission to International Space Station

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Elderberry:
NASA Sept. 29, 2020

https://www.nasa.gov/feature/nasa-spacex-to-launch-first-commercial-crew-rotation-mission-to-international-space-station

NASA, SpaceX to Launch First Commercial Crew Rotation Mission to International Space Station

NASA and SpaceX are beginning a regular cadence of missions with astronauts launching on an American rocket from American soil to the International Space Station as part of NASA’s Commercial Crew Program. NASA’s SpaceX Crew-1 is the first crew rotation mission with four astronauts flying on a commercial spacecraft, and the first including an international partner.

NASA astronauts Michael Hopkins, Victor Glover, Shannon Walker, and Soichi Noguchi of the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) are set to launch to the space station on SpaceX’s Crew Dragon spacecraft and Falcon 9 rocket. The Crew-1 astronauts named the spacecraft Resilience, highlighting the dedication the teams involved with the mission have displayed and to demonstrate that when we work together, there is no limit to what we can achieve. They named it in honor of their families, colleagues, and fellow citizens.

Launch is targeted for Saturday, Oct. 31, from Launch Complex 39A at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida. The crew is scheduled for a long duration stay aboard the orbiting laboratory, conducting science and maintenance. The four astronauts are set to return in spring 2021.

NASA’s SpaceX Demo-2 test flight completed earlier this year was the final demonstration flight of the Crew Dragon. The test flight, along with NASA astronauts Robert Behnken and Douglas Hurley, is helping validate SpaceX’s crew transportation system, including the launch pad, rocket, spacecraft, and operational capabilities. NASA is working to complete the certification of the Crew Dragon system ahead of the Crew-1 mission.

Hopkins and Glover were assigned to the Crew-1 mission in 2018 and began working and training on SpaceX’s next-generation human spacecraft. Walker and Noguchi joined the crew earlier this year.

Michael Hopkins is the commander of the Crew Dragon and the Crew-1 mission. Hopkins is responsible for all phases of flight, from launch to re-entry. He will also serve as an Expedition 64 flight engineer aboard the station. Selected as a NASA astronaut in 2009, Hopkins spent 166 days in space as a long duration crew member of Expeditions 37 and 38 and completed two spacewalks totaling 12 hours and 58 minutes. Born in Lebanon, Missouri, Hopkins grew up on a farm outside Richland, Missouri. He has a bachelor’s degree in aerospace engineering from the University of Illinois, and a master’s degree in aerospace engineering from Stanford University. Before joining NASA, Hopkins was a flight test engineer with the U.S. Air Force.

Victor Glover is the pilot of the Crew Dragon and second-in-command for the mission. Glover is responsible for spacecraft systems and performance. He also will be a long duration space station crew member. Selected as an astronaut in 2013, this will be his first spaceflight. The California native holds a Bachelor of Science degree in general engineering, a Master of Science degree in flight test engineering, a Master of Science degree in systems engineering and a master’s degree military operational art and science. Glover is a naval aviator and was a test pilot in the F/A‐18 Hornet, Super Hornet, and EA‐18G Growler aircraft.

Shannon Walker is a mission specialist for Crew-1. As a mission specialist, she will work closely with the commander and pilot to monitor the vehicle during the dynamic launch and re-entry phases of flight. She will also be responsible for monitoring timelines, telemetry, and consumables, like fuel and atmosphere levels. Once aboard the station, Walker will become a flight engineer for Expedition 64. Selected as a NASA astronaut in 2004, Walker launched to the International Space Station aboard the Russian Soyuz TMA-19 spacecraft as the co-pilot, and spent 161 days aboard the orbiting laboratory. More than 130 microgravity experiments were conducted during her stay in areas such as human research, biology, and materials science. A Houston native, Walker received a Bachelor of Arts degree in physics from Rice University in 1987, as well as a Master of Science degree and a doctorate in space physics, both from Rice University, in 1992 and 1993, respectively.

Soichi Noguchi will also be a mission specialist for Crew-1, working with the commander and pilot to monitor the vehicle during the dynamic launch and re-entry phases of flight, and keeping watch on timelines, telemetry and consumables. Noguchi will also become a long duration crew member aboard the space station. He was selected as an astronaut candidate by the National Space Development Agency of Japan (NASDA, currently the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency) in May 1996. Noguchi is a veteran of two spaceflights. During space shuttle mission STS-114 in 2005, Noguchi became the first Japanese astronaut to perform a spacewalk outside the space station. He performed a total of three spacewalks during the mission, accumulating 20 hours and 5 minutes of spacewalking time. He launched aboard a Soyuz spacecraft in 2009 to return to the station as a long duration crew member. The Crew Dragon will be the third spacecraft that Noguchi has flown to the orbiting laboratory.

Lifting off from Launch Pad 39A on a Falcon 9 rocket, Crew Dragon will accelerate its four passengers to approximately 17,000 mph and put it on an intercept course with the International Space Station. Once in orbit, the crew and SpaceX mission control will monitor a series of automatic maneuvers that will guide the Crew-1 astronauts to their new home in orbit. After approximately one day in orbit, Crew Dragon will be in position to rendezvous and dock with the space station. The spacecraft is designed to dock autonomously with the ability for astronauts aboard the spacecraft to take control and pilot manually, if necessary.

After successfully docking, the astronauts of Crew-1 will be welcomed aboard station by NASA astronaut Kate Rubins and Sergey Ryzhikov and Sergey Kud-Sverchkov of the Russian space agency Roscosmos. For the first time, the space station’s crew will expand to seven people with Expedition 64, increasing the amount of crew time available for research.

The Crew Dragon being used for this flight will remain docked to the station for the full length of a long duration space station expedition, lasting approximately six months. The Crew-1 astronauts will spend their time aboard the International Space Station conducting new and exciting scientific research in areas, such as botany, cancer, and technology.

Radishes will be grown in space. This model plant is nutritious, grows quickly, and is genetically similar to Arabidopsis, a plant frequently studied in microgravity. Findings could help optimize growth of the plants in space as well as provide an assessment of their nutrition and taste. Scientists are leveraging microgravity to tests drugs based on messenger ribonucleic acids (mRNA) for treating leukemia. A new toilet headed to the space station has a number of features that improve on current space toilet operations and help us prepare for future missions, including those to the Moon and Mars.

During their stay on the orbiting laboratory, astronauts of Crew-1 will see a range of unpiloted spacecraft including the Northrop Grumman Cygnus, the next generation of SpaceX cargo Dragon spacecraft, and the Boeing CST-100 Starliner on its uncrewed flight test to the station. They also will conduct a variety of spacewalks and welcome crews of the Russian Soyuz vehicle and the next SpaceX Crew Dragon in 2021.

At the conclusion of the mission, Crew Dragon will autonomously undock with the four astronauts on board, depart the space station and re-enter the Earth’s atmosphere. After splashdown just off Florida’s coast, the crew will be picked up at sea by a SpaceX recovery vessel and will be brought to shore to board a plane for return to the Johnson Space Center in Houston.

The Crew-1 mission is a major step for NASA’s Commercial Crew Program. Operational, long duration commercial crew rotation missions will enable NASA to continue the important research and technology investigations taking place onboard the station. Such research benefits people on Earth and lays the groundwork for future exploration of the Moon and Mars starting with the agency’s Artemis program, which will land the first woman and the next man on the lunar surface in 2024.

Elderberry:
SpaceX upgrades Crew Dragon capsule before its next astronaut flight

American Military News  October 04, 2020 Samantha Masunaga - Los Angeles Times

https://americanmilitarynews.com/2020/10/spacex-upgrades-crew-dragon-capsule-before-its-next-astronaut-flight/


--- Quote ---SpaceX has made some changes to its signature crew spacecraft, the Crew Dragon capsule, as it looks forward to its astronaut launch at the end of October.

The upgrades come after the Elon Musk-led company launched two NASA astronauts in May in its first-ever crewed mission. After a more than two-month stay at the International Space Station, the capsule, with astronauts Bob Behnken and Doug Hurley aboard, returned safely to Earth in August.

That test flight enabled SpaceX and NASA to evaluate the capabilities of the Hawthorne company’s Crew Dragon.

SpaceX found that there was deeper erosion than expected in four small areas of the capsule’s heat shield, Hans Koenigsmann, SpaceX’s vice president of build and flight reliability, told reporters Tuesday. The affected spots were near the tension ties, which hold together the capsule and its trunk — a cargo-carrying module that gets jettisoned before the capsule reenters Earth’s atmosphere.

The rest of the capsule’s heat shield, which is located at the bottom of the spacecraft and helps it reenter the atmosphere safely, worked as expected, Koenigsmann said. He said that the erosion did not reach the capsule’s structure and that SpaceX has addressed the problem by putting a more erosion-resistant material in place.

More at link.
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Elderberry:
SpaceX Conducted Staggering Eight Million Hours Of Dragon & Falcon 9 Simulation Tests

WCCFTECH By Ramish Zafar 10/4/2020

https://wccftech.com/spacex-dragon-falcon-9-testing/


--- Quote ---SpaceX and NASA are teaming up to launch the first official crewed mission to the International Space Station from the United States after nine years later this month. This mission, termed as Crew-1 will take off from NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida on the 31st. While Crew-1 will not be the first time astronauts take to skies from U.S. soil since the Space Shuttle era, it will mark the start of the series of launches under NASA's Commercial Crew Program that aims to expand the involvement of the private industry in the crewed launch sector.

At this front, officials from NASA and SpaceX conducted a series of press briefing earlier this week. The briefings were aimed to provide updates about the upcoming mission and the changes that the parties made to SpaceX's Crew Dragon after its return from the ISS following the culmination of NASA's Demo-2 mission. This mission flew astronauts Robert Behnken and Douglas Hurley to the space station in order to evaluate the capsule spacecraft.

SpaceX Highlights Extensive Simulations, Testing With NASA For Crew Dragon's Certification

During the second round of press briefings that took place on Tuesday, SpaceX's Director of Crew Mission Management Mr. Benjamin Reed provided important details about how the company has worked with NASA to ensure that the crewed Dragon missions proceed without any hiccups.

His comments came after SpaceX's Vice President Build and Flight Reliability Mr. Hans-Jorg Koenigsmann revealed in the first round of the briefings that the company had encountered unforeseen heat shield damage on the Crew Dragon vehicle as returned from the ISS to mark Demo-2's completion. Mr. Koenigsmann maintained that the damage was a "safe event" and repeatedly stated that neither Hurley nor Behnken were in any kind of danger throughout the mission's return phase.

As part of his opening statements, Mr. Reed highlighted that both his company and NASA have extensively worked together to ensure that Crew Dragon is capable of safely taking and returning astronauts from the ISS. According to his opening statement:

    So you know I mentioned a lot of the work that we do as a joint team to get us here. A lot of the effort between you know the beginning of this program and now was in the development, the partnership and the certification - ton of certification work that has happened to get us to be ready to go fly operationally. Some examples of the kind of work that we do right, we’ve done you know 500 hours - 500 tests I mean of docking simulations down at Johnson Space Center. We’ve done over eight million hours of hardware-in-the-loop testing between our hardware systems and our software systems including tests that basically simulate Dragon and Falcon working together. Our systems working with NASA’s systems.

    On top of that we’ve done thousands of hours of simulations with our operations teams here at SpaceX, our joint operations teams with NASA and with the crew. We’re in a point now, as Kenny Todd mentioned, we’ve finished this Stage Operations Readiness Review, so we’re at a point now, where we are in the final lane, we’re getting ready for this launch.

More at link.
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Elderberry:
NASA & SpaceX delay launch of next Astronaut crew due to an 'unexpected observation'

TESMANIAN  by  Evelyn Arevalo October 10, 2020

https://www.tesmanian.com/blogs/tesmanian-blog/crew-nov


--- Quote ---The Crew-1 mission was previously scheduled for October 31st.  Today, NASA’s Human Exploration and Operations Mission Directorate Kathy Lueders announced the agency now targets a date no earlier than (NET) November. "We’re now targeting NET early-to-mid November for launch of NASA’s SpaceX Crew-1 mission to the Space Station. The extra time will allow SpaceX to resolve an unexpected observation during a recent non-NASA launch attempt," Lueders stated via Twitter.

    We’re now targeting NET early-to-mid November for launch of @NASA’s SpaceX Crew-1 mission to the @Space_Station. The extra time will allow SpaceX to resolve an unexpected observation during a recent non-NASA launch attempt. More: https://t.co/sheWOD74m6 pic.twitter.com/YLq1Tb4LfN

    — Kathy Lueders (@KathyLueders) October 10, 2020

The 'unexpected observation' refers to a rocket issue that occured during a United States National Security mission, in which SpaceX was contracted to deploy an upgraded third generation Global Positioning Satellite (GPS-III Space Vehicle 04) for the U.S Space Force atop a Falcon 9 rocket. On October 2nd, SpaceX attempted to deploy the GPS-III satellite but at around two seconds before the 9:43 p.m. EDT liftoff timeframe, launch controllers scrubbed the launch at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station's Launch Complex 40. The founder of SpaceX Chief Engineer Elon Musk said the mission was aborted due to an "unexpected pressure rise in the turbomachinery gas generator" of the Falcon 9 launch vehicle's first-stage.

More at link.
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Elderberry:
SpaceX Will Replace Faulty Merlin 1D Engines As It Gears For NASA Astronaut Launch

WCCFTECH by Ramish Zafar 10/21/2020

https://wccftech.com/spaces-faulty-merlin-1d-engines-nasa-launch/


--- Quote ---Astronautic launch services provider Space Exploration Technologies Corp. (SpaceX) is busy working to fix a problem with its rockets that has delayed several launches for the U.S. government. SpaceX, which is set to launch NASA astronauts Michael Hopkins, Shannon Walker and Viktor Glover and Japanese Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) astronaut Soichi Noguchi to the International Space Station (ISS) next month, is busy troubleshooting its Falcon 9 rockets for propulsion system problems.

These problems caused NASA to delay its first operational crew launch to the International Space Station earlier this month after SpaceX discovered the problem on its launch for the United States Space Force's third batch of brand new global positioning system (GPS III) satellites. Now, NASA's Associate Administrator of the Human Exploration and Operations Mission Directorate Ms. Kathy Lueders who is responsible for the agency's coordination with SpaceX has provided more details about the company's progress on fixing its rockets.

SpaceX Appears To Be On Track To Launch NASA's Crew-1 Mission In Mid-November

Ms. Lueders provided updates about the problem and NASA and SpaceX's troubleshooting on the microblogging platform Twitter. The space agency had revealed a delay for its Crew-1 mission through a blog post earlier this month, and today's update is the first follow up since then.

More at link.
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