SpaceX-NASA Dragon Demo-2 launch

Why in news?

• SpaceX's Falcon 9 rocket and Crew Dragon spacecraft, carrying two NASA astronauts, successfully blasted off from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida.
• Elon Musk’s SpaceX has thus become the first private company to launch human beings into orbit.

What are the component parts?

• SpaceX is a company founded by billionaire entrepreneur Elon Musk.
• Elon Musk also heads Tesla Motors that produces new-age automobiles.
• The rocket, named Falcon 9, which carried the spaceship into the orbit, was built by SpaceX.
• Crew Dragon Capsule is the spaceship that carries the astronauts.
• The Florida launch facility used for the flight still belonged to NASA.

What is the mission plan?

• Veteran NASA astronauts Robert Behnken and Douglas Hurley flew onboard the spaceship named Crew Dragon.
• They have embarked on a 19-hour voyage to the orbiting International Space Station (ISS).

• [ISS is the world’s only space-based laboratory. It is located about 400 km from the earth.]

• Crew Dragon Capsule will dock automatically into the docking port Harmony, with the help of sensors and cameras.
• They will perform tests on the Crew Dragon and conduct research.
• At ISS, they will spend 4 months before returning home.
• On atmospheric re-entry, the Crew Dragon capsule will splashdown in the Atlantic Ocean and will be recovered by the Go Navigator Recovery Vessel.
• The mission was called Demo-2, in keeping with the fact that it was still only a ‘test flight.’
• If successful, this would lead to more missions in the coming years.

Why is the mission so special?

• For NASA, it was the first flight of its astronauts on an American spaceship, launched on American soil, since the STS-135 mission in 2011.
• Following the 2011 mission, all astronauts were flown to the ISS in Russia’s Soyuz Capsule.
• With the launch of SpaceX’s Crew Dragon space craft, NASA is heralding a new chapter in space exploration.
• It sets the precedence for private participation in space operations.
• There was an opinion that the government monopoly in space exploration was not sustainable.
• Inviting private players is expected to exponentially bring down the cost of space travel.
• SpaceX flight is a culmination of more than decade-long efforts to enable private players build and operate spaceflights.
• It will also allow NASA to concentrate on deep space exploration.
• NASA could now work more vigorously towards taking humans to moon, and Mars, and, possibly, on some asteroid, in between.

Source: Indian Express