SpaceX’s Crew Dragon spacecraft approaches the International Space Station for docking May 31. Credit: NASA
SpaceX’s Crew Dragon spacecraft will likely return to Earth in August to wrap up a test flight to the International Space Station with NASA astronauts Doug Hurley and Bob Behnken, a senior space agency official said Tuesday.
The exact schedule for Hurley and Behnken’s return to Earth will hinge on several factors, such as the performance of their Crew Dragon spaceship, the progress of their work on the space station, and weather conditions in the capsule’s landing zones in the Atlantic Ocean and the Gulf of Mexico, according to Ken Bowersox, the acting associate administrator for NASA’s human exploration and operations mission directorate.
Bowersox said Tuesday that the Crew Dragon’s Demo-2 mission — the first SpaceX mission to carry astronauts — is proceeding as planned, and the crew capsule is performing well since its launch on a Falcon 9 rocket May 30 from the Kennedy Space Center and docking with the space station one day later.
The successful liftoff of the Crew Dragon marked the end of a nearly nine-year gap in launches of astronauts into orbit from U.S. soil following the retirement of the space shuttle in 2011.
Before the launch, NASA officials said the Crew Dragon test flight could last from one to four months, depending on a range of technical and weather factors.
“We didn’t prescribe the length of the Demo-2 mission until we got the crew on orbit and we could see the performance of the Dragon,” Bowersox said Tuesday. “The Dragon is doing very well, so we think it’s reasonable for the crew to stay up there a month or two. The actual details are still being worked out.”
Bowersox took over as acting head of NASA’s human spaceflight efforts last month after the abrupt resignation of Doug Loverro, who served in the role for six months before leaving the agency. Industry sources have said Loverro broke NASA procurement rules during a contract competition earlier this year for federal funding to support the development of new human-rated landers to carry astronauts to the lunar surface.
The Crew Dragon spacecraft that launched with Hurley and Behnken was certified to fly in space for up to four months. The limiting factor on the spacecraft’s endurance is the degradation of the ship’s power-generating solar arrays in the harsh environment of low Earth orbit.
NASA is now looking at bringing Hurley and Behnken back to Earth in late July or some time in August.
Bowersox discussed the plans Tuesday in a briefing during a joint meeting of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine’s Space Studies Board and the Aeronautics and Space Engineering Board.
Behnken is expected to perform at least two spacewalks in late June and early July with space station commander Chris Cassidy, who launched in April on a Russian Soyuz spacecraft. The duo will replace batteries on the far starboard end of the space station’s solar power truss, installing fresh power packs delivered by a Japanese HTV cargo craft last month.
Hurley will operate the space station’s Canadian-built robotic arm during the spacewalks. The arrival of Hurley and Behnken on May 31 ended a six-week period when Cassidy was the only U.S. astronaut on the space station, limiting the crew’s capability to perform experiments, repairs and other required maintenance activities.
“It is very likely that by the end of July, we will have conducted some spacewalks with Chris Cassidy and Bob Behnken, replaced some batteries on the ISS, and we’ll — about two months from now — start thinking about bringing Bob and Doug home,” said Bowersox, a former astronaut and SpaceX executive. “We’d like to get them home some time in August.”
But if weather conditions look favorable, NASA and SpaceX might elect to have the Crew Dragon undock from the station and return to Earth before the end of July, sources said.
NASA astronauts Doug Hurley and Bob Behnken (left and right) brief ground teams on their trip to the space station aboard SpaceX’s Crew Dragon spacecraft. Credit: NASA
Alongside their work to assist Cassidy with regular space station operations, Hurley and Behnken are also helping SpaceX ground teams continue their assessment of the Crew Dragon’s performance. Mission controllers planned to place the Dragon capsule into a hibernation mode, then wake up the ship’s systems to verify the spacecraft can perform its role as a quick-response lifeboat to scurry astronauts back to Earth in the event of an emergency.
Mission managers are also checking data to monitor the status of the solar arrays.
Bowersox said strict wind limits for the Crew Dragon spacecraft flying the Demo-2 mission — named “Endeavour” by Hurley and Behnken — will also come into play as NASA and SpaceX plan the return schedule. In some cases, the wind limit for splashdown could be as low as 9 knots.
“The Demo-2 vehicle has a little bit tighter restrictions on its landing wind requirements, so we’ll need to provide extra lead time for the weather possibilities, but I think it will all work out in August,” Bowersox said. “August is often a light wind month in the parts of the Gulf (of Mexico) and the east coast of Florida that we’re looking at landing, so I think we’ll be able to find a good opportunity in there.”
But officials have not set a target date for the landing. That will wait until later in the mission, once Behnken and Cassidy complete their spacewalks.
“We don’t want to try to pin things down to too hard of a date or too hard of a time,” Bowersox said. “We want to pick the conditions that are right for this first return of the Crew Dragon with crew on-board.”
A few hours after departing the space station, the Crew Dragon will fire its Draco thrusters for a braking burn and re-enter the atmosphere, targeting a parachute-assisted splashdown at sea. The landing zones are located roughly 24 nautical miles, or 27 statute miles, off the east coast of Florida, with a backup site in the Gulf of Mexico south of Pensacola.
The Demo-2 test flight is a precursor to operational crew rotation missions to the space station using the Crew Dragon spacecraft. The first of the operational Crew Dragon missions, known as Crew-1, is scheduled for launch no earlier than Aug. 30 from the Kennedy Space Center.
NASA has ordered six crew rotation flights on the Crew Dragon spacecraft through 2024, each carrying four astronauts to and from the space station on expeditions lasting as long as 210 days. SpaceX also has agreements with Axiom Space and Space Adventures, two commercial space companies, to fly private citizens into orbit on shorter-duration Crew Dragon missions beginning as soon as late 2021.
SpaceX developed the Crew Dragon under contract to NASA, but the company is free to use the spacecraft for commercial flights without NASA involvement.
NASA has a similar contract with Boeing for development of the Starliner crew capsule, which has yet to fly with astronauts. An unpiloted Starliner test flight was cut short before docking with the space station in December, and Boeing plans to fly a second demonstration mission later this year before a test flight with a crew on-board in early 2021.
Steve Stich, deputy manager of NASA’s commercial crew program, said May 31 that space agency managers will evaluate the readiness of the next Crew Dragon spacecraft — for the Crew-1 mission — before deciding when to bring Hurley and Behnken home.
“Not only are we looking at this particular vehicle, we’re also looking ahead to Crew-1,” Stich said. “That’s an important mission for us. It has four crew (members). It really is what commercial crew is about — having the vehicle ready to do these increment missions … Right now, it’s targeting toward being launch-ready at the end of August timeframe. So we’ll just kind of continue to look at this vehicle. Is it performing well? We’ll look at the readiness of that vehicle, and in a month or so, we’ll be able to make a decision as to how long to keep this vehicle in orbit.”
NASA astronauts Mike Hopkins, Victor Glover, Shannon Walker, and Japanese astronaut Soichi Noguchi are training for the Crew-1 mission. The Crew-1 flight will only launch after the return of the Demo-2 mission, and a subsequent review of data from the Crew Dragon test flight.
While the spacecraft for the Demo-2 mission came with a four-month certified mission lifetime, the Dragon for the Crew-1 flight will be certified for a full-duration 210-day mission, according to NASA.
Stich said there are several modifications to the capsule SpaceX is building for the Crew-1 mission, although major components such as the capsule’s life support system and guidance, navigation and control systems are largely unchanged.
“The Crew-1 vehicle can land in a little bit higher wind state,” Stich said. SpaceX has changed some of the outer composite panels to make that a little stronger.”
“It also has the capability not only dock to the forward port of the space station, but it can go to the zenith (space-facing) port as well, so it has that capability, and it has a couple other features,” Stich said.
The space station has two docking ports outfitted to receive Crew Dragon and Starliner spacecraft. Once the Crew Dragon and Starliner vehicles are operational, NASA expects both ports will be used simultaneously to accommodate visiting crew and cargo ships.
NAIROBI, Kenya (AP) — The body of Ugandan Olympic athlete Rebecca Cheptegei — who died after being set on fire by her partner in Kenya — was received Friday by family and anti-femicide crusaders, ahead of her burial a day later.
Cheptegei’s family met with dozens of activists Friday who had marched to the Moi Teaching and Referral Hospital’s morgue in the western city of Eldoret while chanting anti-femicide slogans.
She is the fourth female athlete to have been killed by her partner in Kenya in yet another case of gender-based violence in recent years.
Viola Cheptoo, the founder of Tirop Angels – an organization that was formed in honor of athlete Agnes Tirop, who was stabbed to death in 2021, said stakeholders need to ensure this is the last death of an athlete due to gender-based violence.
“We are here to say that enough is enough, we are tired of burying our sisters due to GBV,” she said.
It was a somber mood at the morgue as athletes and family members viewed Cheptegei’s body which sustained 80% of burns after she was doused with gasoline by her partner Dickson Ndiema. Ndiema sustained 30% burns on his body and later succumbed.
Ndiema and Cheptegei were said to have quarreled over a piece of land that the athlete bought in Kenya, according to a report filed by the local chief.
Cheptegei competed in the women’s marathon at the Paris Olympics less than a month before the attack. She finished in 44th place.
Cheptegei’s father, Joseph, said that the body will make a brief stop at their home in the Endebess area before proceeding to Bukwo in eastern Uganda for a night vigil and burial on Saturday.
“We are in the final part of giving my daughter the last respect,” a visibly distraught Joseph said.
He told reporters last week that Ndiema was stalking and threatening Cheptegei and the family had informed police.
Four in 10 women or an estimated 41% of dating or married Kenyan women have experienced physical or sexual violence perpetrated by their current or most recent partner, according to the Kenya Demographic and Health Survey 2022.
TEL AVIV, Israel (AP) — A rare Bronze-Era jar accidentally smashed by a 4-year-old visiting a museum was back on display Wednesday after restoration experts were able to carefully piece the artifact back together.
Last month, a family from northern Israel was visiting the museum when their youngest son tipped over the jar, which smashed into pieces.
Alex Geller, the boy’s father, said his son — the youngest of three — is exceptionally curious, and that the moment he heard the crash, “please let that not be my child” was the first thought that raced through his head.
The jar has been on display at the Hecht Museum in Haifa for 35 years. It was one of the only containers of its size and from that period still complete when it was discovered.
The Bronze Age jar is one of many artifacts exhibited out in the open, part of the Hecht Museum’s vision of letting visitors explore history without glass barriers, said Inbal Rivlin, the director of the museum, which is associated with Haifa University in northern Israel.
It was likely used to hold wine or oil, and dates back to between 2200 and 1500 B.C.
Rivlin and the museum decided to turn the moment, which captured international attention, into a teaching moment, inviting the Geller family back for a special visit and hands-on activity to illustrate the restoration process.
Rivlin added that the incident provided a welcome distraction from the ongoing war in Gaza. “Well, he’s just a kid. So I think that somehow it touches the heart of the people in Israel and around the world,“ said Rivlin.
Roee Shafir, a restoration expert at the museum, said the repairs would be fairly simple, as the pieces were from a single, complete jar. Archaeologists often face the more daunting task of sifting through piles of shards from multiple objects and trying to piece them together.
Experts used 3D technology, hi-resolution videos, and special glue to painstakingly reconstruct the large jar.
Less than two weeks after it broke, the jar went back on display at the museum. The gluing process left small hairline cracks, and a few pieces are missing, but the jar’s impressive size remains.
The only noticeable difference in the exhibit was a new sign reading “please don’t touch.”
VICTORIA – The British Columbia government is partnering with a bear welfare group to reduce the number of bears being euthanized in the province.
Nicholas Scapillati, executive director of Grizzly Bear Foundation, said Monday that it comes after months-long discussions with the province on how to protect bears, with the goal to give the animals a “better and second chance at life in the wild.”
Scapillati said what’s exciting about the project is that the government is open to working with outside experts and the public.
“So, they’ll be working through Indigenous knowledge and scientific understanding, bringing in the latest techniques and training expertise from leading experts,” he said in an interview.
B.C. government data show conservation officers destroyed 603 black bears and 23 grizzly bears in 2023, while 154 black bears were killed by officers in the first six months of this year.
Scapillati said the group will publish a report with recommendations by next spring, while an independent oversight committee will be set up to review all bear encounters with conservation officers to provide advice to the government.
Environment Minister George Heyman said in a statement that they are looking for new ways to ensure conservation officers “have the trust of the communities they serve,” and the panel will make recommendations to enhance officer training and improve policies.
Lesley Fox, with the wildlife protection group The Fur-Bearers, said they’ve been calling for such a committee for decades.
“This move demonstrates the government is listening,” said Fox. “I suspect, because of the impending election, their listening skills are potentially a little sharper than they normally are.”
Fox said the partnership came from “a place of long frustration” as provincial conservation officers kill more than 500 black bears every year on average, and the public is “no longer tolerating this kind of approach.”
“I think that the conservation officer service and the B.C. government are aware they need to change, and certainly the public has been asking for it,” said Fox.
Fox said there’s a lot of optimism about the new partnership, but, as with any government, there will likely be a lot of red tape to get through.
“I think speed is going to be important, whether or not the committee has the ability to make change and make change relatively quickly without having to study an issue to death, ” said Fox.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 9, 2024.
