Photo: NASA
Apparently oblivious to all the drama unfolding at a global level, humanity’s space exploration plans go ahead just as scheduled, at least for now. Sometime in May, for the first time in more than a decade, American astronauts will be taking off from American soil on board an American spacecraft.
So far, all the tests conducted on the SpaceX Crew Dragon, the spacecraft that will be taking the crew up to the International Space Station, have proved the technology is more than suitable for the task. The project is so advanced that there are only minor adjustments and tests to be made.
The last such test to be conducted, aimed at ensuring the safety of the crew, was an emergency egress exercise that took place at the beginning of the month on the Launch Complex 39A at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida.
The exercise involved all NASA and SpaceX personnel with a role in the upcoming launch, including the pad rescue team from the launch site. As per the disaster scenario, teams had to locate injured personnel, load them into special slidewire baskets high up on the launch tower, and send them down to the ground where Mine Resistant Ambush Protected (MRAP) vehicles were waiting to take them to safety.
The entire procedure is available in the video attached at the bottom of this text.
Sometime in May or later, depending on a variety of factors, astronauts Doug Hurley and Bob Behnken will depart on the first crewed mission of the Crew Dragon. Called Demo-2, the mission will see the men launching from Florida, docking with the ISS in orbit, splashing down and getting recovered from the middle of the ocean.
The success of Demo-2 is essential to the Crew Dragon, which is expected to become, alongside the Boeing Starliner, one of the main vehicles to be used to reach space in the short term future.
The last such test to be conducted, aimed at ensuring the safety of the crew, was an emergency egress exercise that took place at the beginning of the month on the Launch Complex 39A at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida.
The exercise involved all NASA and SpaceX personnel with a role in the upcoming launch, including the pad rescue team from the launch site. As per the disaster scenario, teams had to locate injured personnel, load them into special slidewire baskets high up on the launch tower, and send them down to the ground where Mine Resistant Ambush Protected (MRAP) vehicles were waiting to take them to safety.
The entire procedure is available in the video attached at the bottom of this text.
Sometime in May or later, depending on a variety of factors, astronauts Doug Hurley and Bob Behnken will depart on the first crewed mission of the Crew Dragon. Called Demo-2, the mission will see the men launching from Florida, docking with the ISS in orbit, splashing down and getting recovered from the middle of the ocean.
The success of Demo-2 is essential to the Crew Dragon, which is expected to become, alongside the Boeing Starliner, one of the main vehicles to be used to reach space in the short term future.
On April 3, @NASA and @SpaceX conducted an emergency egress exercise at Launch Complex 39A at @NASAKennedy.
— NASA Commercial Crew (@Commercial_Crew) April 7, 2020
This demonstration was completed to ensure the crew & support teams can quickly evacuate from the launch pad in the unlikely event of an emergency: https://t.co/5xYN51WHGp pic.twitter.com/75LTRoyMKA
Google News