Category Astronomy

The Dragon spacecraft first reached the International Space Station in 2012 and Crew Dragon became the first private, crewed spacecraft to reach the ISS in 2020.

In March 2019, SpaceX’s Crew Dragon, the company’s spacecraft designed to carry astronauts into space, completed its first test mission to the International Space Station (ISS). Prior to that, in 2012, the Dragon cargo spacecraft made history when it was the first private spacecraft to berth with the ISS. Since then, Dragon has continued carrying cargo to the ISS under commercial agreements with NASA. 

SpaceX successfully launched the Crew Dragon capsule to the ISS on March 2, 2019 from a two-stage Falcon 9 rocket. The spacecraft then docked with the ISS on March 3, and returned to Earth on March 8. 

SpaceX unveiled its design for the crewed spacecraft in 2014 to great fanfare. It’s essentially a modified version of SpaceX’s robotic Dragon spacecraft. Crew Dragon can carry up to seven astronauts, includes a life support system, an emergency-escape system, touch-screen displays, windows and other passenger-related equipment. Another design change is that Crew Dragon docks directly to the ISS while the Dragon freighter is grabbed by the orbiting lab’s large robotic arm and brought into place. 

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A new era in space flight began on April 12, 1981, when Space Shuttle Columbia, or STS-1, soared into orbit from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida.

Astronaut John Young, a veteran of four previous spaceflights including a walk on the moon in 1972, commanded the mission. Navy test pilot Bob Crippen piloted the mission and would go on to command three future shuttle missions. The shuttle was humankind’s first re-usable spacecraft. The orbiter would launch like a rocket and land like a plane. The two solid rocket boosters that helped push them into space would also be re-used, after being recovered in the ocean. Only the massive external fuel tank would burn up as it fell back to Earth. It was all known as the Space Transportation System.

Columbia accelerated into space propelled by two boosters that fell into the Atlantic Ocean, where they were later recovered and reused for other flights. The external tank fell from Columbia after about 9 minutes, and burned up in Earth’s atmosphere. The spacecraft was the first crewed American craft to fly without a prior uncrewed test flight, and was the first crewed mission to use solid fuel rockets.

Some of Columbia’s notable missions in later years included recovering the Long Duration Exposure Facility satellite from space (STS-32, January 1990), running the first Spacelab mission devoted to human medical research (STS-40, June 1991), and launching the Chandra X-Ray Observatory (STS-93, July 1999).

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Following the 1967 Apollo 1 fire disaster, NASA officials contacted Charles Schulz to use Snoopy as their safety mascot. Schulz helped design a pin for the Silver Snoopy award, which was presented to aerospace workers for outstanding contributions toward safer spaceflight operations. Later, during the Apollo 10 mission (which served as the dress rehearsal for the historic Apollo 11 moon landing), NASA dubbed the lunar module “Snoopy” and the command module “Charlie Brown.”

By March 1968, Snoopy was a full-fledged astronaut — and his mission was inspiring other NASA employees and contractors with the Silver Snoopy Award. This special honor is given to any non-military professional in recognition of their dedication to flight safety and successful missions.

Between 1968 and September 2013, the award has been given out to more than 14,000 people, and it is considered one of the highest honors for workers in the aerospace industry.

But even though he was all about safety, Snoopy’s involvement with the great space race has a little bit of adventure as well. Shultz continued his dedication to the program by creating some original artwork, including a comic that took Snoopy straight to the moon.

Snoopy actually beat everyone to the moon via comic strip and his flying dog house in March 1969 — four months before Neil Armstrong’s famous small step for man and giant leap for mankind.

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The International Space Station (ISS) is a modular space station (habitable artificial satellite) in low Earth orbit. It is a multinational collaborative project between five participating space agencies: NASA (United States), Roscosmos (Russia), JAXA (Japan), ESA (Europe), and CSA (Canada). The ownership and use of the space station is established by intergovernmental treaties and agreements. The station serves as a microgravity and space environment research laboratory in which scientific research is conducted in astrobiology, astronomy, meteorology, physics, and other fields. The ISS is suited for testing the spacecraft systems and equipment required for possible future long-duration missions to the Moon and Mars.

The ISS is made up of different components like solar arrays. Its first component was launched in orbit in 1998 with Proton and Soyuz rockets launching it. It is a work station in space for experiments which is capable to hold large number of crew members at a time. Astronauts are transported between the earth and ISS with rockets. Cargo is transported through the Dragon rocket. It helps individual experiments and research and reduce the need of separate rocket launches and research staff.

Research includes material science, weather, natural disaster etc. Unlike unmanned spacecraft, ISS can send data on demand for the learning purpose of people on earth. This is only possible because of the invariable presence of crew members who replace each other from time to time. Scientists on earth use data sent by crew members of ISS for research.

Picture Credit : Google