The SpaceX Crew Dragon spacecraft, which transported four astronauts to the International Space Station in November, broke the record for the longest spaceflight by a U.S. crew on Sunday, surpassing the 84-day mark set by an Apollo capsule on the last flight to the Skylab space station. in 1974.
The Crew Dragon “Resilience” spacecraft launched from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida on November 15 and orbited a Falcon 9 rocket before joining the International Space Station the next day.
Commander Michael Hopkins led the crew of four people, along with pilot Victor Glover, and mission specialists Soichi Noguchi and Shannon Walker. The mission, named Crew-1, is the first operational flight of SpaceX’s Crew Dragon spacecraft, and the first Crew Dragon to transport four astronauts.
A test flight aboard SpaceX’s Crew Dragon “Endeavor” capsule last year transported NASA astronauts Doug Hurley and Bob Behnken to the space station. This test flight lasted 64 days.
The 84-day milestone passed by the Crew Dragon Resilience spaceship on Sunday broke a record set by the Skylab 4 mission in 1974. The three-man Skylab 4 crew flew on an Apollo spacecraft to NASA’s Skylab space station in a low orbit around the Earth, and their mission ended on February 8, 1974 with an extravagance in the Pacific Ocean. This was the last mission to Skylab station before re-entering the atmosphere in 1979.
Science pilot Edward Gibson is the only member of the Skylab 4 crew still alive. Commander Gerald Carr passed away last year and pilot William Pogue died in 2014.
Hopkins and his crew members held a video conference with Gibson Sunday.
On our 84th day in space, Crew-1 breaks the record for most days in space for an American human capsule. Originally in 1973-74 by the Skylab 4 crew of Gerald Carr, Edward Gibson and William Pogue. Today we had the honor of meeting with Ed. pic.twitter.com/4olxP1CPFv
– Victor Glover (@AstroVicGlover) 7 February 2021
“Today Crew-1 broke the record for the longest US space capsule mission ever, the Skylab 4 record of 84 days in 1974, “tweeted Noguchi, a Japanese astronaut.” We were delighted and delighted to speak with Skylab astronaut Ed Gibson. ”
The Crew-1 astronauts are about halfway through their planned five-and-a-half-month mission. The Crew Dragon Resilience spacecraft is due to take off from the space station around May 1 and return to Earth with a parachute support off the coast of Florida.
SpaceX’s growing fleet of Crew Dragon capsules is designed to fly up to 210 days per mission in a low orbit around the Earth, a requirement set by NASA. The US space agency has contracted with SpaceX and Boeing to develop and fly commercial crew capsules of humans to the space station, ending NASA’s reliance on Russian Soyuz spacecraft for space shuttle services.
The three Apollo flights to the Skylab space station lasted 28 days, 59 days and 84 days. NASA’s spacecraft were limited to a few weeks’ flight, with the longest shuttle flight lasting nearly 18 days in 1996.
Hopkins, Glover, Noguchi and Walker are joined at the space station by Russian Commander Sergey Ryzhikov, flight engineer Sergey Kud-Sverchkov and NASA astronaut Kate Rubins. Ryzhikov, Kud-Sverchkov and Rubins launched on October 14 on a Russian Soyuz spacecraft.
A fresh three-person crew departs on the next Russian Soyuz mission on April 9, followed by the departure of Ryzhikov’s crew in mid-April to depart after landing on the steppes of Kazakhstan and a six-month flight on the Soyuz MS to complete. -17 spacecraft.
Before the Crew Dragon Resilience spacecraft returns to Earth, SpaceX’s next crew capsule will have to blow off the Kennedy Space Center on April 20 with four fresh astronauts to kick off an almost six-month rotation on the International Space Station.
NASA Commander Shane Kimbrough, pilot Megan McArthur, Japanese astronaut Akihiko Hoshide and European astronaut Thomas Pesquet are training for the Crew-2 mission, which launched the Crew Dragon Endeavor capsule on Demo-2 last year. test flight flown, will reuse.
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