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#1 2021-04-23 10:04:36

kbd512
Administrator
Registered: 2015-01-02
Posts: 7,362

Dragon (Endeavor) Crew-2 Mission - Successful Launch

SpaceX YouTube Channel: Crew-2 Mission | Launch

Launch looked great.  No issues.

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#2 2021-04-23 10:35:32

Oldfart1939
Member
Registered: 2016-11-26
Posts: 2,366

Re: Dragon (Endeavor) Crew-2 Mission - Successful Launch

I stayed up late to watch, but finally went to bed before the launch. Another picture perfect launch and first stage recovery
You tube is great for watching this. The NASA site did a great job of coverage, with John Inspruker from SpaceX making his usual comment for the company.

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#3 2021-04-23 16:53:02

SpaceNut
Administrator
From: New Hampshire
Registered: 2004-07-22
Posts: 28,750

Re: Dragon (Endeavor) Crew-2 Mission - Successful Launch

Well  could keep creating new posts for every single space x crewed vehicle but that means a volume of low post topics being generated.
Yes it is a plus to see the US giving its own people the ride they need to LEO in the ISS but its more than that if we push the technology rather than jumping to another ride to soon....

Space x crewed vehicles have been the Demo 1 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crew_Dragon_Demo-1
Launched on 2 March 2019.

and demo 2 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crew_Dragon_Demo-2
30 May 2020

This was noted in the cots topic.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SpaceX_Dragon_2

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SpaceX_Crew-1
Resilience

SpaceX's next astronaut mission for NASA has been pushed back, with a launch 'no earlier' than late October

BB17YKxS.img?h=533&w=799&m=6&q=60&o=f&l=f&x=1934&y=963

The mission, called Crew-1, will ferry four astronauts to the space station and back: Victor Glover, Shannon Walker, Mike Hopkins, and Soichi Noguchi.

Good to hear https://www.spacex.com/launches/

SpaceX_Crew-1_logo.svg

Crew Dragon Resilience (Dragon C207)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crew_Dragon_Resilience

Roughly nine minutes after the launch, the first stage of the rocket returned for a landing on a drone ship in the Atlantic Ocean, a regular occurrence now on almost all SpaceX missions.

The second stage of the rocket continued to boost the capsule higher into orbit, where it will now take more than a day to reach the ISS, arriving tomorrow, Monday, November 16 at 11 P.M. Eastern Time.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SpaceX_Crew-1

Crew-1 is the first of six scheduled operational missions for NASA designed to take four astronauts at a time on long-duration stays to the space station.

Once the four astronauts on Crew-1 arrive at the ISS they will remain on board for about 180 days, performing experiments and research before returning to Earth in June 2021.

Here is the busy Space x flight schedule
https://www.spacelaunchschedule.com/spa … -schedule/


Tentative schedule for manned flights onboard the crewed Dragon
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SpaceX_Dragon_2

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SpaceX_Crew-2
Crew-2 also used the same capsule as Demo-2 (Endeavour) and used the same booster as Crew-1 (B1061)

https://www.denverpost.com/2021/04/23/s … -3rd-crew/
SpaceX launches 3rd crew with recycled rocket and capsule

This is crewed # 2

After an all-day review, NASA and SpaceX tentatively cleared a refurbished Crew Dragon spacecraft and Falcon 9 rocket for launch next Thursday to ferry a three-man, one-woman crew to the International Space Station.

SpaceX's Falcon 9 rocket heads to launchpad before April 22 blast off

The target launch time from Launch Complex 39A is 6:11am ET, with the rocket reaching the ISS April 23 at 5:30am ET.

BB1fJx6Z.img?h=534&w=799&m=6&q=60&o=f&l=f

The issue needs to be resolved by Saturday, though, when NASA conducts a 'static fire' test, in which the rocket engines are ignited while the vehicle remains on the ground.

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#4 2021-04-24 09:57:05

GW Johnson
Member
From: McGregor, Texas USA
Registered: 2011-12-04
Posts: 5,423
Website

Re: Dragon (Endeavor) Crew-2 Mission - Successful Launch

There was a collision scare about space junk,  that turned out to not be as large a threat as first feared. 

This does point out how important it is to get started cleaning up the space junk cluttering up LEO space.  Sadly,  that topic has not received sufficient attention. 

Decades ago,  a paint flake hit the space shuttle windshield,  cracking the outer layer.  Anything bigger would have penetrated,  causing a fatal decompression.

Sooner or later,  it will happen.

GW


GW Johnson
McGregor,  Texas

"There is nothing as expensive as a dead crew,  especially one dead from a bad management decision"

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#5 2021-04-24 10:05:31

RobertDyck
Moderator
From: Winnipeg, Canada
Registered: 2002-08-20
Posts: 7,782
Website

Re: Dragon (Endeavor) Crew-2 Mission - Successful Launch

GW Johnson wrote:

Sadly,  that topic has not received sufficient attention.

Did you see the movie "Gravity"? That's the whole premise of the show. Of course exaggerated, Hollywood always does. A number of issues with the movie, but overall better than most.
1*bQDUS8_ROhfn26xDSJr7eg.gif

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#6 2021-04-24 10:19:05

Oldfart1939
Member
Registered: 2016-11-26
Posts: 2,366

Re: Dragon (Endeavor) Crew-2 Mission - Successful Launch

There was a brief furor over the space weapon test by India some time ago that filled an orbit with LOTS of space debris. Other than a bunch of hoo-hah from the press, not much occurred to rectify the issue.

LEO is becoming a junkyard, and some cleanup is desperately needed.

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#7 2021-04-24 10:26:55

GW Johnson
Member
From: McGregor, Texas USA
Registered: 2011-12-04
Posts: 5,423
Website

Re: Dragon (Endeavor) Crew-2 Mission - Successful Launch

Yes,  I saw "Gravity".  Entertaining, but not very technically accurate,  except for the deadliness of sudden decompression. 

However,  victims are not killed outright.  They may (or may not) lose consciousness in 15-30 seconds.  Irreversibility of the deadly outcome occurs at about 2 minutes,  confirmed by extensive experiments,  and not just a few accidents.  Actual brain death (cessation of EEG) takes around 10 minutes,  just like down here.

GW


GW Johnson
McGregor,  Texas

"There is nothing as expensive as a dead crew,  especially one dead from a bad management decision"

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#8 2021-04-24 14:26:19

Calliban
Member
From: Northern England, UK
Registered: 2019-08-18
Posts: 3,352

Re: Dragon (Endeavor) Crew-2 Mission - Successful Launch

There was an excellent recreation of a hard vacuum transit of a person between two spacecraft on the latest series of The Expanse.  Naomi Nagata jumps between two spacecraft a couple of hundreds metres apart without a space suit and manages to open the airlock and get inside before passing out.  The capillaries in her eyes burst in vacuum and exposure to unfiltered sunlight gives her skin burns.  One of the other likely outcomes that wasn't shown, was the excess pressure in her bladder and gut would probably have resulted in her messing herself.  No one wants to watch that on TV so the creators left it out.


"Plan and prepare for every possibility, and you will never act. It is nobler to have courage as we stumble into half the things we fear than to analyse every possible obstacle and begin nothing. Great things are achieved by embracing great dangers."

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#9 2021-04-24 15:51:46

GW Johnson
Member
From: McGregor, Texas USA
Registered: 2011-12-04
Posts: 5,423
Website

Re: Dragon (Endeavor) Crew-2 Mission - Successful Launch

One of the first hard vacuum transits of an unprotected human was depicted in Kubrick's "2001 A Space Odyssey",  back in 1968.  The lone surviving astronaut was forced to enter an airlock without his space helmet by a malfunctioning computer that would not allow him back inside,  in his EVA pod.  The computer had killed the other 4 astronauts.

One actual case happened around 1966 in the vacuum chamber in NASA Houston,  testing prototypes for the Apollo moon suit.  This was a very large chamber pumped down to vacuum,  with hot lights and simulated regolith on the floor,  to simulate lunar daytime conditions.  There was an airlock,  with its doors interlocked so that only one door could be open at a time,  like a torpedo tube.  The inner door opened into the chamber,  the outer door opened to the outside.

A tester wearing 200 lb of lunar suit was walking around in this vacuum,  observed by a technician in street clothes and a lab coat from the airlock,  through a porthole window in its inner door.  The oxygen line from the backpack to the helmet broke,  depressurizing the suit very suddenly.  The wearer struggled for around 15 seconds,  then collapsed. 

The tech in the airlock saw this,  closed the outer door,  and opened the inner door.  The rushing air blew him close to the fallen suit wearer,
but was essentially "nothing" as regards filling the chamber.  He dragged the 200 lb suit-plus-180 lb wearer to the airlock,  closed the inner door,  hit the air flood valve,  and then passed out himself. 

The rescue tech was exposed to vacuum almost 90 seconds,  and the suit wearer almost 2 minutes.  Both suffered frostbite of moist tissues (nasal,  oral,  eyes),  but recovered fully.  Air in the gut expands greatly,  causing great pain.  With zero pressure in the lungs,  oxygen diffuses back out of the blood and is lost to space much faster than in any breath-hold experiments here on Earth.  Your time conscious in vacuum is thus shorter than in any breath-hold situations here on Earth.  I used to free-dive to 110 feet when I was young;  that's a 3 minute round trip.

You DO NOT hold your breath if exposed to vacuum;  that is guaranteed death by irreversible pneumothorax!  That's the one thing Kubrick got wrong in his movie depiction. 

Pneumothorax is bursting of your lungs because the pressure difference across these tissues exceeds 2 psi.  You literally drown in your own blood,  and there is nothing known that can be done to stop it.  Divers are trained to avoid holding their breath while on SCUBA for avoiding exactly the same deadly risk.

There was another similar vacuum exposure accident about that time.  Not sure whether it was NASA or somewhere else.  It caused the death of the one exposed.  Meanwhile,  many dogs died of vacuum exposure at NASA in the 1960's,  determining how long such exposure could be survived,  and when revival efforts would fail.

GW


GW Johnson
McGregor,  Texas

"There is nothing as expensive as a dead crew,  especially one dead from a bad management decision"

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#10 2021-07-14 22:35:19

SpaceNut
Administrator
From: New Hampshire
Registered: 2004-07-22
Posts: 28,750

Re: Dragon (Endeavor) Crew-2 Mission - Successful Launch

lead-1-1170x659.jpg

Got wonder if the truck portion of the capsule could be removed post return to earth and collected on orbit to begin building with.

The images show half of it is covered with solar cells which should be of value since the solar array was just added to by a cargo ships capability which brought up more to attach to the ISS.

https://www.teslarati.com/spacex-crew-d … -recovery/

the cargo version is a bit different but it still must have some value while its still up there to build with

dragon_illustration_new.png

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