SpaceX launches new crew to ISS
Falcon 9 first stage barreling home to Florida tonight.
After a scrub two days ago due to a ground equipment issue, SpaceX tonight successfully launched a new crew of four to ISS, its Falcon 9 rocket lifting off from Kennedy in Florida.
The Dragon capsule is Endurance, on its fourth flight. The first stage completed its third flight, landing back in Florida.
This launch will allow the two-person crews launched by Boeing’s Starliner capsule in June and SpaceX’s Freedom capsule in September to come back home on Freedom.
When it was decided not to allow the Starliner astronauts to come home on Starliner because of thruster issues on the capsule, NASA decided to keep its ISS launch schedule as normal as possible, thus forcing that crew to complete a mission of about eight months, with a planned return in February 2025. Initially their Starliner mission was expected to last anywhere from two weeks to two months-plus, depending on how well Starliner functioned while docked to ISS.
Thus, when the press says their mission was turned unexpectedly from a two-week flight to many months, this is not quite true. They launched knowing their mission could be extended to two months. However, NASA decision forced them to do an abnormally long mission, nine months long. This was then extended one more month because the new Dragon capsule that NASA and/or SpaceX had decided to use was taking longer than expected to get built. When it then became clear it would not be ready by March, NASA finally agreed to let SpaceX use Endurance instead. The new capsule will now replace it on the Axiom commercial manned flight, scheduled for later this year.
The astronauts were never really “stranded”, as their return flight was always planned. NASA simply decided to take for it the easiest path — requiring the least shuffling — without considering their needs. There is also the possibility that the Biden administration encouraged that decision, because flying an extra “rescue” flight in the fall using a Falcon 9 and Dragon capsule — as Elon Musk’s claims he offered to do — would have given Musk a major PR victory. And since Musk has now joined the “Trump Nazi Party”, as constantly spewed by the slanderers on the left, that could not be allowed, no matter how reasonable and common sense his proposal.
Endurance is scheduled to dock with ISS tomorrow evening.
The leaders in the 2025 launch race:
29 SpaceX
11 China
3 Russia
2 Rocket Lab
SpaceX now leads the rest of the world, including American companies, in successfull launches, 29 to 20.
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