At 11:00am GMT exactly (or 5.51am EST - for my American readers), Ripley along with his capsule the Crew Dragon docked safely with the Internation Space Station (ISS). The 'soft' capture of the capsule happened when the ISS was over New Zealand. Then after 10 minutes later, 12 latches secured Crew Dragon to the ISS. It was a weird but exciting moment for me as I was watched the live-streamed video off the ISS app (ISS HD Live) as I woke up on Saturday Morning. Defiantly something to wake up for!
This autonomous docking of Crew Dragon successfully marked the completion of a major milestone for SpaceX and NASA. Their project aims to develop privately owned spacecraft in order to transport astronauts back and forth from the ISS. Just like a plane would do for our holidays. It's not just SpaceX involved - Boeing is also developing their own capsule. No assistance from astronauts on board the ISS or the robotic arm of the ISS was needed for Crew Dragon.
For those who were not aware of this event happening or what it entailed, I have written a previous blog post about the mission 'Crew Dragon' on Saturday evening (Click Here for that post). But basically...
SpaceX launched an unmanned spacecraft from Cape Canaveral, Florida. It marked a huge step for America as nothing has launched from Cape Canaveral since the retirement of the space shuttle in 2011. Crew Dragon launched from Florida at 7:38am GMT (or 2:48am EST). The only thing on board the capsule was a smart dummy named Ripley, a stuffed toy Earth as well as some cargo for the ISS. But, everyone focused in on Ripley... And why wouldn't you? He's amazing!
Ripley is a dummy equipped with multiple sensors and dressed in a custom built SpaceX suit. Ripley live-streamed the launch from cameras within him and you could choose to watch from Ripley's the point of view or a camera mounted in the capsule.
Even the toy had a purpose! The stuffed Earth was there to demonstrate when the capsule had made it to microgravity as it would float. You can see the Earth toy floating in Elon Musk's tweet below the next paragraph.
After Crew Dragon docked to the ISS, a NASA astronaut Bob Behnken commented on the smoothness. He stated that this was '... One more milestone that gets us ready for flight' (Source). Bob Behnken along with Doug Hurley will fly in the first crewed mission of the Dragon spacecraft which will happen either later this year or early 2020 (Exciting times!)
The Docking of Crew Dragon
As you can see below, I linked a tweet which Elon Musk retweeted. It shows the moment when the capsule, Crew Dragon docked.
Down below is the tweet that Roscosmos (the Russian Space Agency) sent to NASA to congratulate them.
After the Crew Dragon docked, leak test were carried out in the caspule. Once the test when completed, the astronauts on the ISS inspected the docking adapter which held Dragon. They wore air masks for a precaution. It was to ensure no particulates (small forms of matter which could really affect the health of the astonaut) were in the air. At 13:08 GMT (or 8:07am EST), the hatch to the Dragon was open and the crew went across. More checks were done to ensure the safety of the crew before air was circulated between the ISS and Dragon.
The Dragon won't stay at the ISS from long though. On friday, the capsule will return to Earth
Twitter's Response
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| The Rubbish Screenshot which I took whilst on the ISS app. It was so cool to watch this as I slowly woke up on Saturday Morning. |
This autonomous docking of Crew Dragon successfully marked the completion of a major milestone for SpaceX and NASA. Their project aims to develop privately owned spacecraft in order to transport astronauts back and forth from the ISS. Just like a plane would do for our holidays. It's not just SpaceX involved - Boeing is also developing their own capsule. No assistance from astronauts on board the ISS or the robotic arm of the ISS was needed for Crew Dragon.
For those who were not aware of this event happening or what it entailed, I have written a previous blog post about the mission 'Crew Dragon' on Saturday evening (Click Here for that post). But basically...
SpaceX launched an unmanned spacecraft from Cape Canaveral, Florida. It marked a huge step for America as nothing has launched from Cape Canaveral since the retirement of the space shuttle in 2011. Crew Dragon launched from Florida at 7:38am GMT (or 2:48am EST). The only thing on board the capsule was a smart dummy named Ripley, a stuffed toy Earth as well as some cargo for the ISS. But, everyone focused in on Ripley... And why wouldn't you? He's amazing!
Ripley is a dummy equipped with multiple sensors and dressed in a custom built SpaceX suit. Ripley live-streamed the launch from cameras within him and you could choose to watch from Ripley's the point of view or a camera mounted in the capsule.
Even the toy had a purpose! The stuffed Earth was there to demonstrate when the capsule had made it to microgravity as it would float. You can see the Earth toy floating in Elon Musk's tweet below the next paragraph.
After Crew Dragon docked to the ISS, a NASA astronaut Bob Behnken commented on the smoothness. He stated that this was '... One more milestone that gets us ready for flight' (Source). Bob Behnken along with Doug Hurley will fly in the first crewed mission of the Dragon spacecraft which will happen either later this year or early 2020 (Exciting times!)
Earth floats gently in zero gravity pic.twitter.com/XUH3KeDPVe— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) March 2, 2019
The Docking of Crew Dragon
As you can see below, I linked a tweet which Elon Musk retweeted. It shows the moment when the capsule, Crew Dragon docked.
This docking proceedure required a number of things to go right. The Dragon had to successfully find the proper corridor to approach the ISS. Then the capsule had to attain the right relative velocities and its navigation sensors had to work. There was a new docking adapter which was installed in 2016 for this task. But, it hadn't been tested yet.Docking sequence on Interstellar music. pic.twitter.com/M7V309FFcN— Chandan Sinha (@OrangeDurito) March 3, 2019
Down below is the tweet that Roscosmos (the Russian Space Agency) sent to NASA to congratulate them.
The After Story... Or TestingRoscosmos sends its sincere compliments to the colleagues from @NASA in connection with the successful trial docking of the new spacecraft pic.twitter.com/By3500eMQu— РОСКОСМОС (@roscosmos) March 3, 2019
After the Crew Dragon docked, leak test were carried out in the caspule. Once the test when completed, the astronauts on the ISS inspected the docking adapter which held Dragon. They wore air masks for a precaution. It was to ensure no particulates (small forms of matter which could really affect the health of the astonaut) were in the air. At 13:08 GMT (or 8:07am EST), the hatch to the Dragon was open and the crew went across. More checks were done to ensure the safety of the crew before air was circulated between the ISS and Dragon.
The Dragon won't stay at the ISS from long though. On friday, the capsule will return to Earth
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| The Photo of Earth taken in the ISS HD Live app. |
Twitter's Response
SpaceX Crew Dragon recap https://t.co/MmQmctxRSo— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) March 2, 2019
A milestone in human spaceflight is happening Saturday. The @SpaceX #CrewDragon will launch to space station for the Demo-1 flight test. An uncrewed mission, this flight will test the rocket and spacecraft SpaceX will use to launch astronauts from the U.S. https://t.co/SKUq4MgNuQ pic.twitter.com/J6iDKILRJL— Intl. Space Station (@Space_Station) February 28, 2019
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