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The journey to the space station – lengthened from about eight hours to a little over a day by the new launch time – is considered SpaceX’s first “operational” mission for the Crew Dragon.
A so-called test flight of the vehicle to and from the space station with two crewmen aboard the Dragon in August marked the first space flight of NASA astronauts launched from U.S. soil in nine years, following the end of the shuttle program.
NASA officials only just signed off on Crew Dragon’s final design earlier this week, capping a nearly 10-year development phase for SpaceX under the space agency’s public-private crew program.
The advent of the Falcon 9 and Crew Dragon represents a new era of commercially developed space vehicles – owned and operated by a private entity rather than NASA – being used to carry Americans into orbit.
“The history being made this time is we’re launching what we call an operational flight to the International Space Station,” NASA chief Jim Bridenstine said at a press conference at Kennedy Space Center on Friday.
Musk, the billionaire Silicon Valley titan who also is chief executive of electric carmarker and battery manufacturer Tesla Inc, usually attends high-profile SpaceX missions in person. But his presence for the launch was thrown into question on Thursday after he said he had taken a series of four coronavirus diagnostic tests, with two coming back positive and two negative.
Asked if Musk would be in the launch control room for liftoff, Bridenstine said agency policy required employees to quarantine and self-isolate after testing positive for the disease, “so we anticipate that that will be taking place.”
Whether Musk came into contact with the astronauts was unclear but unlikely since the crew has been in routine quarantine for weeks prior to the flight.
NASA contracted SpaceX and Boeing in 2014 to develop competing space capsules aimed at replacing the shuttle program that ended in 2011 and weaning the United States off dependence on Russian rockets to send U.S. astronauts to space.
Boeing’s first crewed test mission with its Starliner capsule is planned for late next year. (Reporting by Joey Roulette; editing by Bill Tarrant and Leslie Adler)
https://news.google.com/__i/rss/rd/articles/CBMia2h0dHBzOi8vbmF0aW9uYWxwb3N0LmNvbS9wbW4vbmV3cy1wbW4vc3BhY2V4LWxhdW5jaC1vZi1jcmV3LW9uLWZpcnN0LW9wZXJhdGlvbmFsLW1pc3Npb24tZGVsYXllZC1ieS13ZWF0aGVy0gEA?oc=5
2020-11-14 02:50:58Z
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