The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) and private aerospace company SpaceX are getting ready to launch astronauts Doug Hurley and Bob Behnken, almost 10 …
The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) and private aerospace company SpaceX are getting ready to launch astronauts Doug Hurley and Bob Behnken, almost 10 years (2011) after the last Space Shuttle Program lifted off from the Kennedy Space Centre, from American soil.
The launch is supposed to take place on Wednesday,27 May 4.32 pm EDT, or Thursday,28 May 2.02 am IST from Launch Complex 39A at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida.
But it is not going to be easy, and there will be risks.
Whether it is the Coronavirus pandemic or the skeleton crew that will be working on the ground on the day of the launch; or the fact that it is the maiden voyage of the Dragon crew capsule.
Human spaceflight is returning to America! ????????????
“My heart is sitting right here (motioning to the throat), and I think it’s going to stay there until we get Bob and Doug safely back from the International Space Station,” said Gwynne Shotwell, SpaceX’s president and Chief Operating Officer, in a press conference, reported Spaceflight. “But between now and then, there’s still work to do.”
The Space Shuttle programwas a reusable low Earth orbital spacecraft system that was operated from 1981 to 2011. Its official program name was Space Transportation System (STS). It has launched manned satellites and interplanetary probes, as well as the Hubble Space Telescope, and helped in the construction and servicing of the International Space Station. However, the program was now without its failures. With two major, deadly disasters, the program was finally shut down forever.
On 28 January 1986, the STS-51-L disintegrated 73 seconds after its launch, due to equipment failure and killed seven astronauts on board. Again, on 1 February 2003, a spacecraft disintegrated during re-entry and killed all seven of the STS-107 crew. Hurley, the spacecraft commander for SpaceX’s Dragon crew capsule, had served as pilot on the last shuttle mission.
After the Space Shuttle debacle, NASA used Russia’s Soyuz rockets to get their astronauts to the ISS. This SpaceX mission is part of the Commercial Crew Mission, where NASA gets private companies to collaborate with them in order to develop and operate spacecraft. The program began in 2010. Boeing and SpaceX are the two companies working on spacecraft that can deliver crew members to the International Space Station (ISS).
Boeing has had a lot of trouble in developing a safe and functional crew capsule that can take NASA astronauts to the ISS. Its last flight test was a massive failure and NASA has even opened an investigation into this disastrous test. Boeing Co’s CST-100 Starliner astronaut capsule had a successful launch of its first unmanned test mission, but an automated timer error prevented the spacecraft from attaining the correct orbit for it to rendezvous and dock with the space station. It is supposed to have another test flight, later this year
Since 2011 (when SpaceX joined the program), NASA has given the Elon Musk-owned company funds to the tune of $3.1 billion to develop, test, and fly the Dragon spacecraft reported CNBC. SpaceX has also supplemented its research with its own funding, however no official figures have been made available.
