Crew-1 Lands Safely in Gulf of Mexico
Four astronauts returned to Earth early Sunday morning on a SpaceX Crew Dragon after a six-month stay aboard the International Space Station (ISS), completing the first
The Resilience spacecraft carried NASA astronauts Michael Hopkins, Victor Glover, and Shannon Walker, and Soichi Noguchi of the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) to a splashdown off the coast of Panama City, Florida at 2:56 a.m. EDT.
The return marks the end of the first crew rotation mission to the International Space Station of the Crew Dragon spacecraft developed in partnership between NASA and SpaceX as a part of the agency’s Commercial Crew Program.
It was the first night landing of an American spacecraft since the Apollo 8 splashed down in the Pacific Ocean following humanity’s first voyage to the moon in December 1968.
Teams on the Go Navigator recovery ship, including two fast boats, now are in the process of securing Crew Dragon and ensuring the spacecraft is safe for the recovery effort. As the fast boat teams complete their work, the recovery ship will move into position to hoist Crew Dragon onto the main deck of Go Navigator with the astronauts inside. Once on the main deck, the crew will be taken out of the spacecraft and receive medical checks before a helicopter ride to Pensacola to board a plane for Houston.
NASA’s SpaceX Crew-1 mission launched Nov. 15, 2020, on a Falcon 9 rocket from the agency’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida. The astronauts named the spacecraft Resilience, in honor of their families, colleagues, and fellow citizens and highlighting the dedication displayed by the teams involved with the mission and demonstrating that there is no limit to what humans can achieve when they work together. Crew Dragon Resilience docked to the Harmony module’s forward port of the space station Nov. 16, nearly 27 hours after liftoff.
Hopkins has now spent a total of 335 days in space during two spaceflights; he conducted three spacewalks during this mission for a total of five in his career. It was Glover’s first spaceflight, during which he conducted four spacewalks during the 168 days. It was Walker’s second spaceflight, bringing her total time in space to 331 days. Noguchi conducted one spacewalk, for a total of four spacewalks during his three total spaceflights; he has spent a total of 345 days in space.
6 responses to “Crew-1 Lands Safely in Gulf of Mexico”
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Does anyone know what its like landing from space into a rough sea? Is being sea sick an option? Do the astronauts have sick bags like on a plane? I hope they get a quick recovery and hatch open without difficulty. ??⛵
There were some heavy seas landings in the old days but I don’t recall if any reported it. Remember they do train a lot on the ocean.
Fortunately Crew Dragon can opt to splash down along a broad swatch of the Gulf Coast or along Florida’s Atlantic Coast. Look at the sea states & pick a spot.
Given that microgravity itself makes some folks sick at first, I’m sure they have barf bags…
Congratulations to SpaceX for a successful flight!
Like the wheel, some things are almost impossible to improve upon. As a way to safely return humans to Earth from space there is really no way to improve on a capsule parachuting into the ocean. There is not much that can go wrong. Unfortunately this holds true for the tractor escape tower also and the toxic dragon has about the worst possible design for an abort system.
SpaceX would do well to strip the toxic dragon of it’s superdraco’s and ton and a half of hypergolic propellants and add an escape tower. Put any propulsion system in the “trunk” so it can be left behind in the even of an anomaly. And they could even make the escape tower reusable.
But since they want that system as a way to station-keep and there would be some sacrifice in payload it is not likely they will spend the money- because NewSpace is all about going cheap. Sad that NASA is still risking people on fundamentally unsafe designs. You would think they would have learned after losing two shuttle crews. There is no cheap.
NewSpace delenda est