{"id":12289,"date":"2020-08-02T20:59:11","date_gmt":"2020-08-02T12:59:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp-productionenv-bjg9h2g2bgg5b8aa.southeastasia-01.azurewebsites.net\/news\/astronauts-back-on-earth-after-extraordinary-dragon-test-flight\/"},"modified":"2020-08-02T20:59:11","modified_gmt":"2020-08-02T12:59:11","slug":"astronauts-back-on-earth-after-extraordinary-dragon-test-flight","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/news\/astronauts-back-on-earth-after-extraordinary-dragon-test-flight\/","title":{"rendered":"Astronauts back on Earth after \u2018extraordinary\u2019 Dragon test flight"},"content":{"rendered":"
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SpaceX\u2019s Crew Dragon spacecraft splashes down in the Gulf of Mexico Sunday with two NASA astronauts on-board. Credit: NASA\/Bill Ingalls<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Returning home after a 64-day test flight, astronauts Doug Hurley and Bob Behnken blazed through Earth\u2019s atmosphere and parachuted into the Gulf of Mexico inside a SpaceX Crew Dragon spacecraft Sunday, a final major step before NASA formally certifies the crew capsule for operational missions to the International Space Station.<\/p>\n

The successful homecoming for Hurley and Behnken signaled a turning point in NASA\u2019s commercial crew program, which fostered public-private partnerships with U.S. companies to design, develop and fly new human-rated space taxis after the retirement of the space shuttle.<\/p>\n

The astronauts launched inside SpaceX\u2019s Crew Dragon spaceship May 30, when they rode a Falcon 9 rocket into orbit from the Kennedy Space Center. The launch was the first time a crew rocketed into orbit from U.S. soil since the last space shuttle flight in 2011.<\/p>\n

With Sunday\u2019s splashdown in the Gulf of Mexico, NASA is on the verge of certifying the Crew Dragon spacecraft for regular trips to and from the space station. That will allow the space agency to end its reliance on Russia for crew transportation.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis has been quite an odyssey the last, five, seven, eight years \u2014 five years since Bob and I started working on this program,\u201d Hurley said after Sunday\u2019s return. \u201cAnd to be where we are now, (with) the first crewed flight of Dragon, is just unbelievable.\u201d<\/p>\n

Not only was Sunday\u2019s splashdown a major milestone for NASA, it also made history in the realm of commercial spaceflight. The Crew Dragon became the first privately-owned spacecraft to carry a crew into orbit and return them safely to Earth.<\/p>\n

\u201cI do think what this heralds really is fundamentally a new era in spaceflight, a new era in space exploration,\u201d said Elon Musk, SpaceX\u2019s founder and CEO, in remarks Sunday evening in Houston to welcome home Hurley and Behnken. \u201cWe\u2019re going to go to the moon. We\u2019re going to have a base on the moon. We\u2019re going to send people to Mars, and make life multi-planetary.\u201d<\/p>\n

After detaching from the International Space Station on Saturday night, the Dragon spacecraft carrying Hurley and Behnken lined up for a southwest-to-northeast approach to a splashdown zone in the Gulf around 34 miles (54 kilometers) off the Florida coast near Pensacola.<\/p>\n

The capsule jettisoned its unpressurized trunk section \u2014 with the ship\u2019s solar panels and thermal control radiator \u2014 just before firing a set of Draco rocket jets at 1:56 p.m. EDT (1756 GMT) for a deorbit burn lasting more than 11 minutes.<\/p>\n

The braking burn changed the capsule\u2019s velocity enough to allow Earth\u2019s gravity to pull the spacecraft back into the atmosphere, which did the rest of the work to slow Dragon\u2019s speed from 17,500 mph (28,000 kilometers per hour) to just 15 mph (24 kilometers per hour) for splashdown.<\/p>\n

The spacecraft closed its nose cone a few minutes later, then encountered the uppermost fringes of the discernible atmosphere at 2:36 p.m. EDT (1836 GMT).<\/p>\n

Wearing their white SpaceX-made flame-resistant pressure suits, the astronauts experienced up to 4Gs during entry. The capsule flew on autopilot, pointing its blunt end into the airflow as temperatures outside the spacecraft rose up to 3,500 degrees Fahrenheit (over 1,900 degrees Celsius).<\/p>\n

A plasma sheath enshrouded the capsule for several minutes, causing an expected communication blackout between the Crew Dragon \u2014 which Hurley and Behnken named \u201cEndeavour\u201d \u2014 and SpaceX mission control in Hawthorne, California.<\/p>\n

Ground teams restored the voice link with the Dragon astronauts, and a pair of drogue parachutes unfurled to stabilize the capsule. Four orange and white main parachutes deployed at an altitude of about 18,000 feet (5,500 meters) to slow the capsule\u2019s descent in the last few minutes before splashdown.<\/p>\n

The 13-foot-wide (4-meter), 16-foot-tall (5-meter) capsule splashed down at 2:48 p.m. EDT (1848 GMT).<\/p>\n