TESMANIAN by Evelyn Arevalo November 25, 2020
SpaceX’s Crew-1 mission launched a crew of four astronauts to the International Space Station (ISS) aboard the Crew Dragon Resilience spacecraft. Crew-1 lifted off atop from Launch Pad 39A at the Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida on November 15. It is SpaceX's second crewed mission, as well as the second astronaut flight launched from American soil since 2011. The agency had not launched astronauts ever since the Space Shuttle was grounded roughly a decade ago. SpaceX officially returned human spaceflight capabilities to the United States. "The mission is the first of six certified, crew missions NASA and SpaceX will fly as a part of the agency’s Commercial Crew Program," the agency states.
After a historic ~27 hour voyage, Crew-1 arrived to the orbiting laboratory on November 16. Dragon Resilience docked to the space station carrying NASA astronauts Michael Hopkins, Victor Glover, Shannon Walker, and Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) astronaut Soichi Noguchi. Upon arrival Crew-1 astronauts were welcomed by ISS Expedition 64 crew members, NASA Astronaut Kate Rubins and Russian cosmonauts Sergey Kud-Sverchkov and Sergey Ryzhikov. Crew-1 will stay at the space station for six months to conduct science research. This is the first long-duration ISS crew in history that features seven members. The space station does not have enough sleeping quarters for all members, only for six. So, one of the Crew-1 astronauts will sleep aboard the Crew Dragon spacecraft.
NASA Astronaut Hopkins, Commander of the Crew-1 mission, decided he will be who sleeps inside Crew Dragon while its docked at the space station. Hopkins said he will sleep inside the spacecraft until another sleeping pod is delivered to ISS, which could arrive three months from now or after the Crew-1 is scheduled to return. He shared that he opted to be the one who sleeps inside the spacecraft because it is an old tradition. “I think there’s a tradition that oftentimes in the shuttle days, the commander usually slept in the cockpit,†Hopkins said during a press conference. “So, at least for me, it just felt right that was where I needed to be. If any of us were going to sleep there, I felt like it should have been me.â€
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https://www.tesmanian.com/blogs/tesmanian-blog/hopkins-dragon
