In a time span of just 12 months Space X, an Elon Musk’s company has launched the third crew to Space station on a NASA mission. The Space X’s crew Dragon Capsule, Endeavour, streaked into the sky at 5:49 am (Eastern Time). It launches from the Kennedy Space Center at Cape Canaveral, Florida. The crew is due to reach at the space station which orbits some 250 miles (400 km) above Earth, early on Saturday morning.
At Space X Falcon 9 rocket launch the countdown proceeds smoothly and even ran ahead of schedule timings. These successful launches are making spaceflight seems like routine flights for NASA and Space X.
According to launch commentators, the rocket is moving 17,000 miles per hour. Within 10 minutes of the Falcon 9 launch, the second stage of the rocket delivered the Dragon capsule crew to the Earth orbit. The first stage descends back safely to the earth and landed on the landing platform in the Atlantic ocean on the drone ship.
This mission marks the second operational space station team to be launched on Space by NASA since the US resumed flying astronauts into Space. Also, it is the third flight into space orbit under NASA’s public-private partnership with Space X. The Crew-2 mission includes 4 astronauts, 2 Americans, 1 French, and 1 Japanese astronaut. The previous two launches include an out-and-back test mission carrying two astronauts into orbit last May. Then a SpaceX’s first full-fledged four-member crew in November 2020.
What the, mission commander, Shane Kimbrough said at launch?
The astronauts were seen off by Elon Musk, founder of Space X, and the acting administrator of NASA, Steve Jurczyk. Few minutes before the launch Shane Kimbrough told the SpaceX flight controllers: “Our crew is flying astronauts from NASA, ESA, and JAXA, which hasn’t happened in over 20 years”
“Off the Earth, for the Earth, Endeavour is ready to go,” He told the commentators, referring to the Dragon Capsule. After the rocket reached orbit, mission commander, Kimbrough responded with:
“It’s great to be back in space”
A night before the launch the astronauts shared the picture of their meal via Twitter and said, “6 months Space food after this.” Also, they share the playlists they planned to listen to when going towards the launch pad.
