Live camera views from on board the Dragon provided a look at Ripley, garbed in SpaceX's black and white spacesuit and strapped into one of the spacecraft's four seats, during the launch.
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"With respect to the 'dummy,' it's actually a smarty, right? It has lots of sensors, so we call it a smarty," said Koenigsmann, adding that the ATD was dubbed "Ripley" after actress Sigourney Weaver's character in the "Alien" movie franchise. In addition, the capsule is loaded with mass simulators and is carrying an anthropomorphic test device (ATD), a "dummy" fitted with sensors around its head, neck and spine to gather data ahead of SpaceX's second Crew Dragon demo mission, DM-2, with NASA astronauts on board. So clearly this is super important for us and incredible."įor DM-1, the Crew Dragon is transporting 450 pounds (200 kilograms) of supplies and equipment for the space station's Expedition 58 crew. "We want to do this, this is our goal, this is why we are actually here.
"Early Dragon 1 had a window on the side and this was clearly a hint to everybody that we wanted to fly humans into space," said Hans Koenigsmann, SpaceX's vice president for build and flight reliability, at a pre-launch press conference on Thursday. The Crew Dragon adds an environmental control and life support system and a launch escape system, the latter capable of carrying the Dragon to safety during its climb to orbit or in the event of a catastrophic problem on the pad. We have passed some of the riskiest items," said SpaceX CEO Elon Musk.įirst revealed in 2014, SpaceX's Crew Dragon builds off the capsule design that the Hawthorne, California-based company has been using to fly cargo for NASA for seven years. We have to dock to station and come back, but so far it has worked. "That was super stressful, but it worked so far. SpaceX flight controllers oversaw the vehicle's ascent from Firing Room 4 inside NASA's Launch Control Center (LCC), continuing the room's Apollo and space shuttle program-use legacy. The early morning launch, which culminated in the Crew Dragon being deployed into Earth orbit 11 minutes after liftoff, set up a scheduled rendezvous with the space station approximately 24 hours later on Sunday. What today really represents is a new era in spaceflight," said NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine at a post-launch press conference. "Tonight was a big night for the United States of America, a great night for NASA. EST (0749 GMT) from Pad 39A at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida. The Demo-1 (DM-1) Dragon lifted off atop a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket at 2:49 a.m.
SpaceX on Saturday (March 2) launched its first Crew Dragon on a uncrewed test flight to demonstrate its ability to safely fly to and from the space station, prior to doing the same with NASA astronauts on board. For the first time, a U.S.-built commercial spacecraft capable of carrying astronauts is now on its way to the International Space Station.
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