Extract from ABC News
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SpaceX has delivered two astronauts to the International Space Station for NASA, following an historic launch with an equally smooth docking in yet another first for Elon Musk's company.
Key points:
- The astronauts will spend between one and four months in space
- They said the capsule had performed well
- When the capsule returns to Earth, a splashdown landing is planned
With test pilots Doug Hurley and Bob Behnken poised to take over manual control if necessary, the SpaceX Dragon capsule pulled up to the station and docked automatically, with no assistance needed.
It was the first time a privately built and owned spacecraft carried astronauts to the orbiting lab in its nearly 20 years. NASA considers this the opening volley in a business revolution encircling Earth and eventually stretching to the moon and Mars.
The docking occurred just 19 hours after a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket blasted off on Saturday afternoon from Kennedy Space Center, in the first US astronaut launch to orbit from home soil in nearly a decade.
Thousands
jammed surrounding beaches, bridges and towns to watch as SpaceX became
the world's first private company to send astronauts into orbit and
ended a nine-year launch drought for NASA.
A few hours before docking, the Dragon riders reported that the capsule was performing beautifully.
Just in case, they slipped back into their pressurized launch suits and helmets for the rendezvous.
The
three space station residents kept cameras trained on the incoming
capsule for the benefit of flight controllers at SpaceX headquarters in
Hawthorne, California, and NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston.
Gleaming
white in the sunlight, the Dragon was easily visible from a few miles
out, its nose cone open and exposing its docking hook as well as a
blinking light. The capsule loomed ever larger on live NASA TV as it
closed the gap.
Colonel Hurley and Colonel Behnken
took over the controls less than a couple of hundred metres out as part
of the test flight, before putting it back into automatic for the final
approach. Colonel Hurley said the capsule handled "really well, very
crisp."
SpaceX and NASA officials had held off on
any celebrations until after Sunday morning's docking — and possibly not
until the two astronauts are back on Earth sometime this summer.
NASA has yet to decide how long the two astronauts will spend at the space station, somewhere between one and four months.
While
they're there, the Dragon test pilots will join the one US and two
Russian station residents in performing experiments and possibly
spacewalks to install fresh station batteries.
In a
show-and-tell earlier on Sunday, the astronauts gave a quick tour of
the Dragon's sparkling clean insides, quite spacious for a capsule.
They said the launch was pretty bumpy and dynamic, nothing the simulators could have mimicked.
The
blue sequined dinosaur accompanying them — their young sons' toy, named
Tremor — was also in good shape, Colonel Behnken assured viewers.
Tremor
was going to join Earthy, a plush globe delivered to the space station
on last year's test flight of a crew-less crew Dragon.
Behnken said both toys would return to Earth with them at mission's end.
An old-style capsule splashdown is planned.
After launch, Mr Musk told reporters that the capsule's return will be more dangerous in some ways than its departure.
Even so, getting the two astronauts safely into orbit and then to the space station had everyone breathing huge sighs of relief.
As always, Mr Musk was looking ahead.
"This is hopefully the first step on a journey toward a civilization on Mars," he said.
ABC/AP
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