Page 74 - World Airnews Magazine December 2020

COLUMN

IN THE TIME OF RESILIENCE

By Heidi Gibson

SpaceX engineers re-inforced part of
So looking forward into the future - the the Crew Dragon’s heat shield and made
ats off to South African born door is open and anyone with enough mon- several other adjustments before managers

HSpaceX CEO Elon Musk - he must ey is allowed to buy a ticket on a commer- cleared the Crew-1 mission for launch.
cial rocket and head off into space.

be smiling after the successful launch and Some context – what is remarkable is Then NASA officials spent two days

flight of the Crew Dragon spacecraft built SpaceX, working under contract to NASA, reviewing the changes and gave the green

and operated by his company. built the Falcon 9 rocket and Crew Dragon light - formally certifying the Crew Dragon

Dubbed ‘Resilience’ the commercial spacecraft, own both vehicles and con- spacecraft and Falcon 9 rocket for opera-

crew capsule rocketed off from the Florida trolled the mission from its corporate tional flights.
spaceport. A huge 65-metre tall Falcon 9 headquarters in Hawthorne, California, “The big milestone here is we are now
rocket effectively gave the Crew Dragon near Los Angeles. moving from development and test and

spacecraft a fiery ride into orbit. The first ‘operational’ Crew Dragon mis- into operational flights,” said NASA Admin-

NASA commander Mike Hopkins was sion, or Crew-1, is one of at least six space istrator Jim Bridenstine.
joined inside the crew capsule by pilot station crew rotation flights NASA has NASA has spent (US) $6 billion over the

Victor Glover, mission specialist Shannon contracted to SpaceX. last decade helping companies develop

Walker and Japanese astronaut Soichi This followed from a successful demon- new commercial human-rated spacecraft.
Noguchi. The four-person team will spend stration mission to the space station earlier In 2014, the space agency selected SpaceX

nearly six months on the International this year when NASA astronauts Doug Hur- and Boeing as partners to complete devel-

space station, ley and Bob Behnken completed the Crew opment of the Crew Dragon and Starliner

The successful blast off marked the start Dragon’s final developmental test flight. crew capsules.

of the first private spaceflight mission The pair spent two months on the space SpaceX has signed agreements with NASA

and many others including the first flight station before returning to Earth for a para- valued at more than (US) $3.1 billion to

officially certified by NASA to fly humans, chute-assisted splashdown on their Crew cover design, testing, and six operational

the first international astronaut onboard a Dragon Endeavour spacecraft in the Gulf of flights of the Crew Dragon spacecraft.

commercial spacecraft, and the first time Mexico in August. The company is now of the world’s most

NASA has packed four people in a space After reviewing data from the test flight, valuable private companies.

capsule. SpaceX transports cargo into space
More than this though the event for the US government, foreign govern-

is a shining light of positivity and ad- ments, and private firms around the

vancement in the world of aerospace world. Now, it can fly people, too, for
when much of the aviation industry is governments and private companies -

doom and gloom – with predictions a Axiom Space, a new space tourism com-

return to ‘normal’ will only materi- pany, has announced that three private

alise in three years’ time. astronauts have booked a Dragon for a
It’s a landmark occurrence and it trip to the ISS later in 2021.

should not be ignored. The name of Tickets are estimated to cost roughly

the craft is apt in this testing time. (US) $60 million per seat. Q

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