SpaceX rocket and spacecraft brought 4 astronauts to the International Space Station (ISS) at the end of April with a time of 15 hours 45 minutes.
SpaceX’s Freedom spacecraft docked with the Harmony module of the International Space Station (ISS) after a smooth flight with Crew-4 crew. Image: NASA TV
SpaceX, Elon Musk’s aerospace company, sets the record for fastest manned flight by Dragon. The Crew-4 crew of four flew to the International Space Station (ISS) in less than 16 hours, the shortest time since SpaceX began carrying out human flights in 2020.
“This is the fastest launch to the space station we’ve ever done, about the same time as New York to Singapore. So it’s exciting,” said Steve Stitch, Crew Program manager Commercial NASA, said.
Crew-4 crew flew into space thanks to a new Dragon spacecraft named Freedom and a Falcon 9 rocket at 2:52 p.m. on April 27 (Hanoi time). Rockets and spacecraft lift off from Pad 39A at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center, Florida. 4 astronauts arrived at the ISS at 6:37 a.m. on April 28, with a total flight time of 15 hours and 45 minutes.
SpaceX’s first manned flight for NASA, Demo-2, took place in May 2020, taking about 19 hours to reach the ISS station. Meanwhile, SpaceX’s latest flight under the agreement with NASA, Crew-3, took almost a full day.
The short flight’s success is partly down to luck, and any delay can affect flight time, according to Jessica Jensen, SpaceX’s vice president of customer service. “It’s not really what we changed, but because of the orbiting mechanism of the ISS, the location of this station and where it flew over Florida,” Jensen explained.
Crew-4 crew (left to right): Jessica Watkins, Robert Hines, Kjell Lindgren, Samantha Cristoforetti. Image: NASA
Crew-4 crew consists of mission commander Kjell Lindgren, Robert Hines, Jessica Watkins (NASA) and Samantha Cristoforetti (European Space Agency ESA). They will carry out a six-month mission aboard the ISS.
SpaceX’s record-breaking flight to the ISS station just before the planned spacewalk by two Russian cosmonauts. “This short flight helped us a lot. Astronauts can arrive a little faster and prepare the necessary things after docking with the ISS station to adjust the Dragon spacecraft for the spacewalk. time,” Stitch said.
Crew-4 is SpaceX’s fastest flight to the ISS, but not its fastest human flight ever. This record is still held by the Russian Soyuz spacecraft with a flight of only 3 hours and 3 minutes in October 2020.
Thu Thao (According to Space)
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