NASA has announced that it is planning to send two astronauts to International Space Station (ISS) aboard SpaceX’s Crew Dragon spacecraft around mid-to-late May this year. This will be the first mission since 2011 in which American astronauts are being sent aboard the nation’s own spacecrafts from American soil.
Crux of the Matter
About the Mission SpaceX will become NASA’s first Commercial Crew Program (CCP) partners. Its Demonstration Mission-2 (Demo-2 or DM-2) of Crew Dragon spacecraft will send NASA astronauts Bob Behnken and Doug Hurley to the International Space Station (ISS) for probably 1.5 to 3 months. The aim behind the extension could be that the US Space Agency does not want to keep one of its astronaut aboard ISS alone for a long time as two of its members would be departing for Earth in late Spring. Behnken, a veteran spacewalker, can also help another NASA astronaut Chris Cassidy with Extra-Vehicular Activity (EVA), as per NASA.
A Decade Long Wait NASA retired its 30-year old space shuttle fleet in 2011. As per NASA instructor Robert Frost, Space Shuttle program was costly to operate and people required to maintain and operate spaceflights remained limited as most of them devoted their work to build the ISS. Moreover, President George Bush, in 2004, had announced that the fleet would retire by 2010 and NASA will focus on completing ISS. Currently, NASA’s astronauts are sent aboard the Soyuz spacecraft of the Russian Space Agency Roscosmos.
About Commercial Crew Program (CCP) CCP is a US program to send astronauts to ISS on private spacecrafts. It is administered by NASA. Boeing and SpaceX had received the contracts for the same. However, Boeing’s debut orbital flight test of Starliner spacecraft failed with as many as 61 areas of improvement. SpaceX with its Crew Dragon spacecraft will be the first private operator to launch astronauts into space.
The big day is on the way: We're launching astronauts to space from American soil once again. @Astro_Doug Hurley & @AstroBehnken continued @space_station & spacewalk training this week for their upcoming flight on NASA's @SpaceX DM-2 @Commercial_Crew mission. 🚀 #LaunchAmerica pic.twitter.com/Yr3vBcxQgo — Johnson Space Center (@NASA_Johnson) February 22, 2020
Curiopedia
Commercial Crew Development (CCDev) is a human spaceflight development program that is funded by the U.S. government and administered by NASA. CCDev will result in US and international astronauts flying to the International Space Station (ISS) on privately operated crew vehicles. Operational contracts to fly astronauts were awarded in September 2014 to SpaceX and Boeing. More Info
Extravehicular activity (EVA) is any activity done by an astronaut or cosmonaut outside a spacecraft beyond the Earth’s appreciable atmosphere. The term most commonly applies to a spacewalk made outside a craft orbiting Earth such as the International Space Station. On March 18, 1965, Alexei Leonov became the first human to perform a spacewalk, exiting the capsule during the Voskhod 2 mission for 12 minutes and 9 seconds. More Info
The International Space Station (ISS) is a space station (habitable artificial satellite) in low Earth orbit. The ISS programme is a joint project between five participating space agencies: NASA (United States), Roscosmos (Russia), JAXA (Japan), ESA (Europe), and CSA (Canada). The ISS serves as a microgravity and space environment research laboratory in which crew members conduct experiments in biology, human biology, physics, astronomy, meteorology, and other fields. The station is suited for the testing of spacecraft systems and equipment required for missions to the Moon and Mars. The ISS maintains an orbit with an average altitude of 400 kilometres (250 mi) by means of reboost manoeuvres using the engines of the Zvezda module or visiting spacecraft. It circles the Earth in roughly 92 minutes and completes 15.5 orbits per day. More Info
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