NASA Crew Ready To Hitch A Ride From SpaceX For Weekend Trip To The International Space Station

It’s been a busy week for space-age happenings, with news on breakthroughs in technology for asteroid mining and the extraction of oxygen from moon rock. And this weekend the reawakening of humanity’s active pursuit of dominion of the cosmos as well as Earth will take another important step forward. Three American astronauts, accompanied by a fourth colleague from Japan, will be carried to the International Space Station by a SpaceX Resilience capsule.

The SpaceX capsule will launch from the Kennedy Space Centre on Saturday evening, carrying ‘Crew 1’. The last time the US space agency had a regular programme of sending humans to the International Space Station was almost 10 years ago. But since Nasa’s own space shuttle fleet was retired after 2011, there has been a lack of transport options.

Now, new public/private partnerships such as that between Nasa and SpaceX, are making human space missions viable again. SpaceX has managed to bring the cost of carrying loads into space down significantly. Until now it’s mainly been launching near orbit satellites. B

Earlier this year, two Nasa astronauts spent two months in orbit analysing the hardware and software systems of SpaceX’s Dragon capsule and Falcon 9 rocket. That operation was called SpaceX Demo 2, and convinced Nasa to rely on Elon Musk’s private space company as a transport service provider for new space missions. Starting this weekend.

The new capsule has been named Resilience by the members of Crew 1, in recognition of the challenges the Nasa and SpaceX teams had to deal with throughout the Covid-19 pandemic while preparing for the mission. Mission specialists Victor Glover and Shannon Walker, along with Japanese astronaut Soichi Noguchi, will be lead by Crew 1 commander Michael Hopkins, who commented:

“If you look at the definition of resilience, that means functioning well in times of stress or overcoming challenging or stressful events. And I think that all of us agree that 2020 has certainly been a challenging year, a global pandemic, economic hardships, civil unrest, isolation.”

“Quite frankly, it’s in honor of our families, of our colleagues, of our fellow citizens, of our international partners and our leaders that have all shown that same quality, those same characteristics.”

Of the team of four, only Mr Glover is embarking on his maiden space flight this weekend. They were taken through a dress rehearsal of launch procedures on Thursday by Cape Canaveral mission managers. This mission will involve the first crewed-spacecraft that is the result of a public/private partnership.

Nasa administrator Jim Bridenstine said:

“I’m extremely proud to say we are returning regular human spaceflight launches to American soil on an American rocket and spacecraft.”

“This certification milestone is an incredible achievement from Nasa and SpaceX that highlights the progress we can make working together with commercial industry.”

Crew 1 will join 3 people already in the International Space Station 250 miles above Earth – Nasa’s Kathleen Rubins, and Sergey Ryzhikov and Sergey Kud-Sverchkov, Russian cosmonauts. Ms Rubins was transported on a Russian Soyuz MS spacecraft. Since the last U.S. space shuttle flight in 2011, Nasa has mainly relied on hitching a ride with Russians. But the partnership with SpaceX means that relationship is coming to a close.

Crew 1 will spend six-months on the space station, performing numerous scientific experiments. Up to half a million people are expected to make the trip to the surrounds of Kennedy Space Centre to watch the launch. They have been urged to strictly maintain social distancing guidelines. If Saturday’s launch schedule, which is considered 70% likely to go ahead, falls victim to weather conditions, a backup launch opportunity has been set for Sunday .