Nineteen hours after a spectacular Florida launch, SpaceX’s Crew Dragon capsule caught up with the International Space Station early Sunday and glided in for a problem-free docking, bringing veteran astronauts Douglas Hurley and Robert Behnken to the outpost in SpaceX’s first piloted space flight.
The historic mission marks a major milestone in NASA’s push to end the agency’s sole reliance on Russian Soyuz spacecraft for carrying astronauts to and from the lab complex, the first piloted launch to orbit by a privately owned and operated spacecraft since the dawn of the space age.
The Crew Dragon capsule on final approach to the International Space Station.
NASA TV
“Welcome to Bob and Doug,” NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine said to the crew in a call from mission control at the Johnson Space Center. “The whole world saw this mission, and we are so, so proud of everything you’ve done for our country and, in fact, to inspire the world.”
“We sure appreciate that, sir,” Hurley replied, floating in the space station’s Harmony module, flanked by crewmate Behnken, space station commander Chris Cassidy and Russian cosmonauts Anatoly Ivanishin and Ivan Vagner.
“It’s obviously been our honor to be just a small part of this,” he said. “We have to give credit to SpaceX, the Commercial Crew Program and, of course, NASA. It’s great to get the United States back in the crewed launch business, and we’re just really glad to be on board this magnificent complex.”
Following a picture-perfect climb to space Saturday atop a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket, Hurley and Behnken monitored an automated rendezvous with the station Sunday, approaching the lab complex from behind and below.
Executing a precise series of thruster firings, the Crew Dragon looped up to a point directly in front of the station and lined up on the lab’s forward docking port, the same one once used by visiting space shuttles.
Hurley, a former Marine test pilot, briefly took over manual control, firing thrusters by tapping high-tech touch-screen cockpit displays to verify a crew’s ability to fly the spacecraft by hand if needed.
The ship’s flight computer than resumed the approach and the Crew Dragon’s docking mechanism engaged its counterpart on the space station at 10:16 a.m. ET, about 15 minutes ahead of schedule. A few minutes later, the capsule was pulled in and locked in place by 12 motorized latches.
The combined Expedition 63 crew, back row, L-R: cosmonaut Anatoly Ivanishin, space station commander Chris Cassidy, cosmonaut Ivan Vagner; front row, L-R: Crew Dragon joint operations commander Robert Behnken and vehicle commander Douglas Hurley. The American flag on the hatch above the astronauts first flew in space on the shuttle Columbia’s maiden flight in 1981; it was left aboard the station by Hurley and his Atlantis crewmates during the last shuttle mission in 2011. Hurley and Behnken plan to bring the flag home at the end of their current mission.
NASA TV
Cassidy, a former Navy SEAL, followed naval tradition and rang the ship’s bell aboard the station to announce the Crew Dragon’s arrival.
“Dragon, arriving,” he said. “The crew of Expedition 63 is honored to welcome Dragon and the Commercial Crew Program to … the International Space Station. Bob and Doug, glad to have you as part of the crew. Well done. Bravo zulu.”
“We here at SpaceX are honored to have been part of ushering in this new era of human spaceflight,” said Anna Menon, the spacecraft communicator at SpaceX’s Hawthorne, California, control center. “On behalf of the SpaceX and NASA partnership, congratulations on a phenomenal accomplishment. And welcome to the International Space Station.”
During the post-docking welcome aboard ceremony, Republican Senator Ted Cruz of Texas asked the Crew Dragon astronauts “how does she handle?”
“It flew just like it was supposed to,” Hurley said. “We had a couple of opportunities to take it out for a spin, so to speak (flying manually), and my compliments to the folks back at Hawthorne and SpaceX for how well it flew. It’s exactly like the simulator, and we couldn’t be happier about the performance of the vehicle.”
A camera mounted in the Crew Dragon capsule looks over the shoulders of astronauts Douglas Hurley, left, and Robert Behnken, right, showing the ship’s high-tech touchscreen displays in the moments after docking with the International Space Station.
NASA TV
Representative Brian Babin, a Texas Republican who represents the Johnson Space Center, asked the astronauts to describe their impressions of launching atop a Falcon 9 rocket.
Behnken, who flew twice aboard the space shuttle, recalled a fairly rough ride on the orbit while its two solid-fuel boosters were firing, but a smooth ascent after that with the shuttle’s three liquid-fueled engines.
He and Hurley expected the Falcon 9 ride to smooth out after the rocket’s first stage, powered by nine engines and generating 1.7 million pounds of thrust, was jettisoned about two-and-a-half minutes into flight. The Falcon’s second stage is powered by a single engine.
“We were surprised a little bit by how smooth things were off the pad,” Behnken said. “The space shuttle was a pretty rough ride heading into orbit with the solid rocket boosters, and our expectation was as we continued with (our) flight into second stage, that things would basically get a lot smoother than the space shuttle.
“But Dragon was huffin’ and puffin’ all the way into orbit, and we were definitely riding a Dragon all the way up,” he said. “So it was not quite the same ride, the smooth ride as the space shuttle was up to MECO [main engine cutoff], a little bit less Gs but a little bit more ‘alive’ is probably the best way I could describe it.”
The Crew Dragon is expected to remain docked to the station for six weeks to four months, allowing Behnken and Hurley to help Cassidy with a full slate of NASA and partner agency research and, possibly, with one or more spacewalks to install new solar array batteries and complete installation of a European experiment platform.
NASA astronauts Bob Behnken, right, and Doug Hurley give a thumbs-up on their way to the SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket with the Crew Dragon spacecraft at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida, on May 30, 2020.
Getty
Cassidy said he looked forward to the help.
“We’ve got a few things to take care of tonight, make sure we’re all safe and we know the plan in case something bad happens,” he said, referring to a standard emergency briefing given to all newly arrived crew members.
“And then we’re looking forward to some operational stuff later in the month, maybe we’ll get outside and do some spacewalks. So we’re all super excited to have two more crewmates to the Expedition 63 team.”
NASA originally planned a short one-week to 10-day test flight for the first piloted Crew Dragon. But delays in the agency’s Commercial Crew Program and scaled-back production of Russian Soyuz spacecraft forced NASA to reduce the lab’s U.S. and partner agency crew to just one — Cassidy.
NASA managers are holding off on making a decision on when the Crew Dragon will return to Earth until they get a better idea of how atomic oxygen in the extreme upper atmosphere might affect the capsule’s solar cells.
No matter how that works out, engineers want time to thoroughly evaluate the capsule’s performance before proceeding with the first operational flight. NASA and SpaceX hope to launch that flight, carrying an international three-man one-woman crew, in the late August timeframe.
SpaceX and NASA successfully launch two astronauts into space
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.
