Freedom capsule splashes down successfully
SpaceX’s Freedom capsule has successfully splashed down off the coast of Florida, and has now been fished out of the water.
UPDATE: All four astronauts have now exited the capsule.
In watching the live stream, it is important to once again note that no one involved in this recovery operation is a government employee. The entire operation is being run by SpaceX, a private American company doing this work for profit.
It will take a bit more time before the astronauts come out of the capsule, as they must do some leak checks to make sure everything is safe.
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SpaceX’s Freedom capsule has successfully splashed down off the coast of Florida, and has now been fished out of the water.
UPDATE: All four astronauts have now exited the capsule.
In watching the live stream, it is important to once again note that no one involved in this recovery operation is a government employee. The entire operation is being run by SpaceX, a private American company doing this work for profit.
It will take a bit more time before the astronauts come out of the capsule, as they must do some leak checks to make sure everything is safe.
Readers!
My annual February birthday fund-raising drive for Behind the Black is now over. Thank you to everyone who donated or subscribed. While not a record-setter, the donations were more than sufficient and slightly above average.
As I have said many times before, I can’t express what it means to me to get such support, especially as no one is required to pay anything to read my work. Thank you all again!
For those readers who like my work here at Behind the Black and haven't contributed so far, please consider donating or subscribing. My analysis of space, politics, and culture, taken from the perspective of an historian, is almost always on the money and ahead of the game. For example, in 2020 I correctly predicted that the COVID panic was unnecessary, that the virus was apparently simply a variation of the flu, that masks were not simply pointless but if worn incorrectly were a health threat, that the lockdowns were a disaster and did nothing to stop the spread of COVID. Every one of those 2020 conclusions has turned out right.
Your help allows me to do this kind of intelligent analysis. I take no advertising or sponsors, so my reporting isn't influenced by donations by established space or drug companies. Instead, I rely entirely on donations and subscriptions from my readers, which gives me the freedom to write what I think, unencumbered by outside influences.
You can support me either by giving a one-time contribution or a regular subscription. There are four ways of doing so:
1. Zelle: This is the only internet method that charges no fees. All you have to do is use the Zelle link at your internet bank and give my name and email address (zimmerman at nasw dot org). What you donate is what I get.
2. Patreon: Go to my website there and pick one of five monthly subscription amounts, or by making a one-time donation.
3. A Paypal Donation or subscription:
4. Donate by check, payable to Robert Zimmerman and mailed to
Behind The Black
c/o Robert Zimmerman
P.O.Box 1262
Cortaro, AZ 85652
You can also support me by buying one of my books, as noted in the boxes interspersed throughout the webpage or shown in the menu above.
I believe that you have never, or perhaps only vary rarely, used the word “stranded” to refer to these astronauts in your coverage of this story. For which we should all thank you. The number of headlines I’ve seen in the last few days that refers to the Boeing test astronauts as having been stranded is just amazing. And of course they never were, they could have been brought home at almost any time, NASA and Rosocosmos would just have to agree on repurposing capsules to do it.
David Eastman: You are correct. The only time I have used the word “stranded” was to explain it was the wrong word to use.
Note however that Roscosmos was never involved, and never had to be involved, except in terms of scheduling dockings to ISS. NASA had access to all the capsules it needed from SpaceX, whenever it decided to do anything.
I saw elsewhere that there was a historic first in this flight: first astronauts to splash down in the Gulf of America.
The SpaceX hosts referred to it as the “Gulf of America”, but mostly they used verbal constructs that avoided it – like “Off the coast of Tallahassee”.
No, I’m not sure why Trump, whom I support, seems to love to engage in these petty controversies that seem mainly to elevate his enemies in the eyes of low-info voters. Perhaps the strength it takes to sustain the fight against the swamp demands constant small provocations and victories? In this case I’ll say it – the end justifies the means!
Ps. If Kate Tice calls it the Gulf of America, then it’s the Gulf of America!
I’m totally confused how all of this worked out. The linked video says Williams and Wilmore got to the ISS on June 6 and Hague and Gorbunov arrived on September 29 “aboard SpaceX’s Dragon Freedom spacecraft, which was docked to the station since its arrival in September, and has since brought Crew-9 back home”
But they just launched a capsule up there with 4 people. Did that stay up there to bring that crew home later?
It sounds like Williams and Wilmore had a capsule capable of bringing them home for several months, but they waited unto the other two’s mission was complete to come home. And the capsule that was recently launched had nothing to do with them coming home.
Is that right? I’m so confused!
Minor spelling edit: …have now “exited” the capsule.
David M. Cook: Fixed. Thank you.
Normally, a crew comes home on the capsule they arrived in, as it has the custom seats that fit them. Williams and Wilmore went up on the Boeing capsule, and didn’t have proper SpaceX suits and seats. Crew 9 went up with only two astronauts instead of the usual four, with spare suits and seats for Williams and Wilmore to use on the return.
The little bit of controversy is over that decision to just return them with the normal end of the Crew 9 mission, rather than send up a dedicated Dragon just to bring them home. It seems to be a case of “Yes, Biden applied some anti-Musk pressure to cause that decision, but it was almost certainly the one NASA was going to make anyways without that pressure.”
Darwin Teague: Each crew treats the capsule that brings them to ISS as their lifeboat. They go up in it, and they come down in it. Since the Starliner crew couldn’t come back in their own capsule, the next capsule to launch, Freedom, came up with only two astronauts, thus making that capsule the lifeboat/return capsule for the two Starliner astronauts. Since that Freedom mission was scheduled to last six months, returning in February, NASA thus forced those two astronauts to do a nine month mission.
The new capsule that launched earlier this week, Endurance, brought a new crew to replace the Freedom crew on ISS. Endurance will remain docked to ISS until that crew is scheduled to return, in about six months.
I hope that helps ease your confusion.
NASA didn’t want to bother its schedule. Space X can send a used capsule up inside a month. They could have sent it up with just cargo if they didn’t want to just send up a ship with no other purpose.
NASA is in charge of ISS, who is in charge or NASA? And why didn’t they care about the astronauts?