Photo: NASA
Few things went without a hitch this year. With the world still uncertain how to handle a health crisis the likes of which it never experienced, every piece of good news, from no matter what field, is worth its weight in gold.
Take Crew Dragon’s performance over the weekend, for instance. SpaceX’s spaceship managed to bring back to Earth in complete safety its two-men crew, showing that the technology is as solid as anything government-backed agencies could come up with.
The stakes riding on the success of the test mission were huge. NASA is betting on commercial partners for the future of space exploration. That means private companies are to handle most of the ship development and launches, while the agency is free to pursue higher goals.
Now that everything ended perfectly, the second mission is already in the cards. Called Crew-2, it will be double the size of the one that just ended this weekend, at least in terms of crew members.
Even before the Dragon landed, NASA announced the members of the second mission. Two American astronauts, one Japanese and an European one will hitch a ride to the International Space Station in the spring of 2021.
NASA astronauts Shane Kimbrough and Megan McArthur will serve as spacecraft commander and pilot, while JAXA astronaut Akihiko Hoshide and ESA astronaut Thomas Pesquet are the mission’s specialists. All four have flown to the station before, only they did so on Soyuz rockets. With the exception of Pesquet, all others have also taken rides in the now-retired American space shuttles.
NASA has another partnership for space launches in the works, with Boeing. The aerospace giant’s Starliner, although developed roughly at the same time with the Crew Dragon, was faced with a few problems during its first uncrewed test flight, when it failed to dock with the ISS.
The status of this second line of commercial spaceships is currently unknown.
The stakes riding on the success of the test mission were huge. NASA is betting on commercial partners for the future of space exploration. That means private companies are to handle most of the ship development and launches, while the agency is free to pursue higher goals.
Now that everything ended perfectly, the second mission is already in the cards. Called Crew-2, it will be double the size of the one that just ended this weekend, at least in terms of crew members.
Even before the Dragon landed, NASA announced the members of the second mission. Two American astronauts, one Japanese and an European one will hitch a ride to the International Space Station in the spring of 2021.
NASA astronauts Shane Kimbrough and Megan McArthur will serve as spacecraft commander and pilot, while JAXA astronaut Akihiko Hoshide and ESA astronaut Thomas Pesquet are the mission’s specialists. All four have flown to the station before, only they did so on Soyuz rockets. With the exception of Pesquet, all others have also taken rides in the now-retired American space shuttles.
NASA has another partnership for space launches in the works, with Boeing. The aerospace giant’s Starliner, although developed roughly at the same time with the Crew Dragon, was faced with a few problems during its first uncrewed test flight, when it failed to dock with the ISS.
The status of this second line of commercial spaceships is currently unknown.
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