{"id":10911,"date":"2021-10-13T19:58:26","date_gmt":"2021-10-13T11:58:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp-productionenv-bjg9h2g2bgg5b8aa.southeastasia-01.azurewebsites.net\/news\/astronauts-in-final-training-for-flight-on-brand-new-spacex-crew-capsule\/"},"modified":"2021-10-13T19:58:26","modified_gmt":"2021-10-13T11:58:26","slug":"astronauts-in-final-training-for-flight-on-brand-new-spacex-crew-capsule","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/news\/astronauts-in-final-training-for-flight-on-brand-new-spacex-crew-capsule\/","title":{"rendered":"Astronauts in final training for flight on brand new SpaceX crew capsule"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"
NASA mission specialist Kayla Barron, pilot Tom Marshburn, commander Raja Chari, and European Space Agency astronaut Matthias Maurer participate in the Crew Equipment Interface Test at Area 59, home of Dragon spacecraft processing at Cape Canaveral Space force Station. Credit: SpaceX<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The four astronauts set to blast off Oct. 30 to the International Space Station visited Cape Canaveral over the weekend for a test run inside SpaceX\u2019s new Crew Dragon Endurance spacecraft, one of the last training events before they return to Florida on launch week.<\/p>\n

Commander Raja Chari, a U.S. Air Force colonel, leads NASA\u2019s Crew-3 mission to the International Space Station. Chari and the mission\u2019s other three astronauts visited Cape Canaveral Space Force Station Saturday for the Crew Equipment Interface Test, a customary pre-flight training event officials equate to a \u201ctest drive\u201d or \u201cwalk through\u201d of the spacecraft.<\/p>\n

The four-person crew will launch on the third NASA crew rotation flight to the space station, and the fifth human flight on a Crew Dragon spacecraft overall, including a 2020 test flight and the all-civilian Inspiration4 mission last month.<\/p>\n

Chari, pilot Tom Marshburn, mission specialist Kayla Barron, and European Space Agency astronaut Matthias Maurer puit on the custom-fitted SpaceX fight suits and climbed into the Crew Dragon Endurance spacecraft Saturday at SpaceX\u2019s processing facility at Cape Canaveral.<\/p>\n

SpaceX performed suit leak checks and moved the Dragon spacecraft\u2019s seats into launch position. The test is intended to familiarize astronauts with the spacecraft and hardware they will take into orbit.<\/p>\n

NASA and SpaceX released photos of the event Wednesday.<\/p>\n

The mission set for launch Oct. 30, known as Crew-3, will last about six months. Chari\u2019s crew will replace the Crew-2 astronauts, who arrived at the space station in April after a flight aboard SpaceX\u2019s Crew Dragon Endeavour spacecraft.<\/p>\n

Crew-3 will fly with a brand new Dragon spacecraft, giving SpaceX a fleet of three active crew capsules. SpaceX is building a fourth Crew Dragon spacecraft for debut on NASA\u2019s Crew-4 mission next year.<\/p>\n

Chari and his crewmates selected \u201cEndurance\u201d as the name of the new spaceship, following a tradition set by the astronauts who flew on the first missions of SpaceX\u2019s Crew Dragon Endeavour and Crew Dragon Resilience capsules.<\/p>\n

The new spacecraft is nearly identical to the other capsules SpaceX\u2019s Human spaceflight fleet. But the Crew-3 mission will mark the first time SpaceX has reused a Crew Dragon nose cone, which flew previously a different spacecraft. There are also software upgrades to guard against radiation impacts on communications systems while the spacecraft is docked at the space station.<\/p>\n

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ESA astronaut Matthias Maurer, pilot Tom Marshburn, commander Raja Chari, and mission specialist Kayla Barron pose with the trunk of their Crew Dragon spacecraft. Credit: SpaceX<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

SpaceX also added more cleaning techniques to cut down on foreign object debris, according NASA, and introduced computer changes to improve their performance during re-entry.<\/p>\n

Engineers also modified the spacecraft\u2019s docking procedures and mechanisms to mitigate hardware interference on the space station side of the interface, NASA said.<\/p>\n

SpaceX also developed and implemented a quick change to the Dragon toilet on the new capsule after an issue with the waste management system on Crew Dragon Resilience spacecraft flown on the private Inspiration4 mission last month.<\/p>\n

Sarah Walker, director of Dragon mission management at SpaceX, said the company developed a \u201csmall design improvement\u201d for the toilet on the Crew Dragon Endurance spacecraft.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere was a small connection in the system that we observed to be a bit loose on a vehicle or two now, so we just rolled in an improvement to make that joint a little tighter,\u201d Walker said.<\/p>\n

NASA said recent inspections of the toilet on the Crew Dragon Endeavour, which will bring the Crew-2 astronauts back to Earth early November, prompted managers to decide to limit use of the waste system on that spacecraft from undocking until splashdown.<\/p>\n

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ESA astronaut Matthias Maurer, pilot Tom Marshburn, commander Raja Chari, and NASA mission specialist Kayla Barron take their seats inside the Crew Dragon Endurance spacecraft Oct. 9. Credit: SpaceX<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Barron, a former U.S. Navy submarine officer and a rookie space flier, said the Crew-3 astronauts are finished with their primary training. The crew members trained at SpaceX\u2019s headquarters in Hawthorne, California, to practice operating the Crew Dragon spacecraft, and at NASA\u2019s Johnson Space Center in Houston to prepare for live and work on the space station.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are training complete in the sense that we are fully qualified to launch, but we will be doing some training just to keep ourselves prepared for the big day,\u201d Barron told Spaceflight Now in an interview.<\/p>\n

Back in Houston, the astronauts will soon enter a medical quarantine to ensure they don\u2019t fall ill before launch.<\/p>\n

\u201cDuring that time, we\u2019ll have an opportunity to do some sims with SpaceX to prepare for launch and docking,\u201d Barron said. \u201cThen we\u2019ll have some other final training events. It\u2019s just kind of wrapping things up and doing what we need to do to feel ready on game day.\u201d<\/p>\n

Chari described the training left in the next couple of weeks as \u201ccatch all\u201d or \u201ctop off\u201d training.<\/p>\n

While the astronauts finish their preparations, SpaceX engineers in Florida planned to mount the Crew Dragon\u2019s pressurized compartment, where the astronauts live, with the spacecraft\u2019s aft trunk section. The craft\u2019s solar panels and thermal control radiators are mounted on the trunk segment.<\/p>\n

Then SpaceX will roll the capsule from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station to the hangar at pad 39A for attachment to the Falcon 9 rocket.<\/p>\n

The Crew-3 astronauts will travel from their home base in Houston to NASA\u2019s Kennedy Space Center on Oct. 25. They will participate in a countdown dress rehearsal with the SpaceX support team at launch pad 39A, where they will board their Crew Dragon capsule on top of a Falcon 9 rocket.<\/p>\n

Launch time Oct. 30 is set for 2:43 a.m. EDT (0643 GMT), roughly the moment Earth\u2019s rotation brings pad 39A underneath the space station\u2019s orbital path.<\/p>\n

Assuming an on-time launch, the Crew-3 astronauts are scheduled to ride the Dragon capsule to an automated docking with the space station at 12:36 a.m. EDT (0436 GMT) on Oct. 31.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re feeling pretty ready as a crew, and ready to climb into that capsule for launch day,\u201d Barron said.<\/p>\n

Email the author.<\/i><\/b><\/p>\n

Follow Stephen Clark on Twitter: @StephenClark1.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

NASA mission specialist Kayla Barron, pilot Tom Marshburn, commander Raja Chari, and European Space Agency astronaut Matthias Maurer participate in the Crew Equipment Interface Test at Area 59, home of Dragon spacecraft processing at Cape Canaveral Space force Station. Credit: SpaceX The four astronauts set to blast off Oct. 30 to the International Space Station […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10911","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10911"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10911"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10911\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10911"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10911"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10911"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}