Commander Mike Hopkins and his three crew members will board their Crew Dragon “Resilience” capsule on Monday for the first time to move the spaceship owned by SpaceX to a new dock port outside the International Space Station.
Hopkins and pilot Victor Glover will be flanked by Japanese astronaut Soichi Noguchi and NASA mission specialist Shannon Walker for the 45-minute maneuver to reposition the Crew Dragon spacecraft. It will fit in their white SpaceX-made print clothes, just like any other boarding or disembarking at the space station.
The docking gate change Monday is the first time a SpaceX crew capsule has performed a relocation maneuver.
“We are very excited about it,” Hopkins said Friday.
Russian Soyuz spacecraft have changed 19 times from the International Space Station’s ports, most recently on 19 March.
“There’s a big difference between how Soyuz does it and we do it,” Hopkins said in an interview with Spaceflight Now last year. ‘Soyuz does it all manually, and it’s planned to be automated. However, we have the ability to take it over and do it manually if need be. ”
Hopkins’ crew launched Nov. 15 aboard the Crew Dragon spacecraft, which they named Resilience, from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida, which launched the first full flight of a SpaceX crew capsule. Their mission, known as Crew-1, arrived at the International Space Station the next day.
The Crew Dragon Resilience flew into a slippery landing site with the front gate of the space station’s Harmony module, the same place that was once used by visiting spacecraft. The relocation maneuver Monday will park the Crew Dragon Resilience spacecraft in an identical landing port at the top, or a highlight, of the Harmony module.
Ground controllers at SpaceX’s headquarters in Hawthorne, California, planned to activate and check systems on the Crew Dragon capsule on Sunday.
“On Sunday, it’s going to be very busy before we move the harbor,” said Steve Stich, NASA’s commercial crew program manager. ‘We’ll wake up Dragon. It has been largely quiet these four-and-a-half months (since the docking). ”
On the 141st day of their mission, Hopkins, Glover, Noguchi and Walker will hover in their spaceship early Monday, closing shutters between the Crew Dragon and the space station.
The Crew Dragon Resilience spacecraft is scheduled to dock from the space station from 06:30 EDT (1030 GMT). A few minutes before the station capsule is disconnected, an automatic command will begin disconnecting power pins and opening brackets to allow the Crew Dragon to leave the port.
‘What’s interesting is that it’s actually a combination of four different flight phases we have with the vehicle. ‘So there’s the standard disconnection, which we will do through the same steps – we will be fit – all the same checks we would do on the normal day of disconnection,’ Hopkins said. “We just put up a flag telling the vehicle it was going to be a move as opposed to a normal decoupling.”
According to Stich, the capsule will retreat to a distance of about 200 feet or 60 meters and use its Draco propellers to fly from a position in front of the space station to a place above the complex.
“Then there’s a phase disconnected afterwards where … the relative navigation systems need to be recycled, and so this is a critical phase,” he said. ‘Once it’s done, we can set up the port relocation piece. And as soon as we command the port mover to start, you go from the front docking shaft to the senithocking shaft. At that point, it’s like a normal dock from the start. ‘
The Crew Dragon’s computers lead the capsule to an automatic link with the highlight on the Harmony module at 07:15 EDT (1115 GMT).
Just like Soyuz crew on their way to a relocation maneuver, the dragon astronauts will be willing to return to Earth in case of problems with the space station.
“In this very short period of time, we have three or four different flight phases taking place, and you still have the potential that if you do something wrong during the construction effort, you could eventually come home,” Hopkins said. “So we have to be prepared to come home too.
‘This is a very interesting piece of the flight, and we’m very excited to have the opportunity to do so, because I think it’s going to be challenging, but I think it’s going to be an excellent ability to add, especially with the number of different types of vehicles we will be offering in the near future, ”Hopkins told Spaceflight Now.
NASA astronaut Kate Rubins, who was aboard the Soyuz MS-17 spacecraft when it swapped ports last month, said the relocation “is not just a pleasure trip”.
“It’s all the fun and work of the day of disconnecting, plus all the fun and work of docking,” Rubins said from recent experience. “It’s a lot of activity. But it’s pretty cool, and it’s a great view to separate from your vehicle that’s been your home for months, and to be able to look at it from 60 feet away. “
Monday’s relocation will pave the way for the next SpaceX crew mission to continue with the leading position on the Harmony module. SpaceX’s Crew-2 mission, launched from the Kennedy Space Center on April 22, will transport Commander Shane Kimbrough, pilot Megan McArthur, Japanese astronaut Akihiko Hoshide, and European Space Agency astronaut Thomas Pesquet. .
Hopkins and his crew plan to end their mission on April 28 with the departure from the space station and a fiery return to Earth’s atmosphere, culminating in a parachute-assisted splash off the coast of Florida.
With their unlocking on April 28, the upper harbor on the Harmony module will be available for the arrival of the next SpaceX Dragon cargo mission to be launched on June 3rd. Canadian robot arm, which will remove a new pair of solar power plants from the dragon’s dragon to upgrade the orbital power system.
“There are some big milestones coming up, so let’s not get our feet wet and make sure we’re watching the ball,” Hopkins said Friday.
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