{"id":12287,"date":"2020-08-04T22:18:43","date_gmt":"2020-08-04T14:18:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp-productionenv-bjg9h2g2bgg5b8aa.southeastasia-01.azurewebsites.net\/news\/dragon-astronauts-describe-sounds-and-sensations-of-return-to-earth\/"},"modified":"2020-08-04T22:18:43","modified_gmt":"2020-08-04T14:18:43","slug":"dragon-astronauts-describe-sounds-and-sensations-of-return-to-earth","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/news\/dragon-astronauts-describe-sounds-and-sensations-of-return-to-earth\/","title":{"rendered":"Dragon astronauts describe sounds and sensations of return to Earth"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Astronauts Doug Hurley and Bob Behnken are seen Sunday aboard a helicopter that carried from the SpaceX\u2019s \u201cGo Navigator\u201d recovery ship in the Gulf of Mexico to Naval Air Station Pensacola, where they boarded a NASA jet for a flight back to their home base in Houston. Credit: NASA\/Bill Ingalls<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Two days after becoming the first U.S. space fliers to splash down in the sea in more than 45 years, astronauts Doug Hurley and Bob Behnken on Tuesday described their fiery ride back to Earth aboard SpaceX\u2019s Crew Dragon capsule to cap a \u201cflawless\u201d test flight, setting the stage for operational flights beginning later this year.<\/p>\n

Riding in their commercial Crew Dragon spacecraft, which they named Endeavour, the astronauts parachuted into the Gulf of Mexico Sunday after plunging through Earth\u2019s atmosphere on a return trip from the International Space Station.<\/p>\n

\u201cI personally expected there to be certainly \u2014 not issues with the vehicle \u2014 but some challenges, some things that were maybe not quite what we expected,\u201d said Hurley, the Crew Dragon\u2019s spacecraft commander, and a veteran of two prior space shuttle flights. \u201cI mean, even on our shuttle flights we had things that happened \u2026 something that you certainly wouldn\u2019t have expected in a real flight.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy credit once again is to the folks at SpaceX, the production folks, the people that put Endeavour together, and certainly our training folks,\u201d Hurley said. \u201cThe mission went just like the simulators. Honestly, from start to finish, all the way, there were really no surprises.\u201d<\/p>\n

Hurley and Behnken launched May 30 on top of a Falcon 9 rocket from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida, becoming the first astronauts to launch into orbit from U.S. soil since the retirement of the space shuttle nearly a decade ago. The next day, the duo docked with the space station to join commander Chris Cassidy and Russian cosmonauts Anatoly Ivanishin and Ivan Vagner.<\/p>\n

Behnken joined Cassidy on four spacewalks in June and July to finish a multi-year effort to upgrade batteries on the space station\u2019s solar power truss. Hurley assisted with operating the station\u2019s Canadian-built robotic arm, and both Dragon astronauts helped perform maintenance, scientific experiments and other tasks during their two-month stint on the orbiting research lab.<\/p>\n

But the prime objective of Hurley and Behnken\u2019s mission \u2014 designated Demo-2, or DM-2 \u2014 was to verify the performance and capabilities of the Crew Dragon spacecraft. They were the first astronauts to fly into space on a Crew Dragon, following the unpiloted Demo-1 test flight to the space station in March 2019.<\/p>\n

The final major task for the Crew Dragon Endeavour spaceship was the return to Earth.<\/p>\n

Hurley and Behnken floated into the capsule Saturday, and the ship autonomously detached from the space station. A series of maneuvers using the Dragon\u2019s Draco thrusters steered the capsule a safe distance from the station and lined up with the targeted recovery zone in the Gulf of Mexico roughly 34 miles (54 kilometers) off the coast near Pensacola, Florida.<\/p>\n

A final 11-minute deorbit burn allowed the Crew Dragon to drop back into the atmosphere. A thermal shield protected the capsule and the astronauts inside from the scorching heat of re-entry, and temperatures outside the spacecraft were expected to reach up to 3,500 degrees Fahrenheit (1,900 degrees Celsius).<\/p>\n

As expected, a sheath of plasma around the spacecraft blocked communications for several minutes between the astronauts and SpaceX mission control in Hawthorne, California. Mission control regained contact with the crew moments before the capsule deployed two drogue parachutes to stabilize its descent through the atmosphere, then unfurled four large orange and white main chutes to slow the capsule to about 15 mph (24 kilometers per hour) for splashdown.<\/p>\n

Hurley and Behnken were the first U.S. astronauts to return to Earth for a water landing since the Apollo-Soyuz mission in July 1975.<\/p>\n

The Crew Dragon\u2019s return to Earth \u201cwas more than what Doug and I expected,\u201d said Behnken, who served as the spacecraft\u2019s pilot.<\/p>\n