On May 30, Saturday, at exactly 3:22 pm (EDT) the SpaceX’s Falcon 9 successfully launched the Crew-Dragon 2 or (DEMO-2) from Launch Complex 39A at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida. It was spectated by a lot of people and gives hope for the new era in space travel. Although it was watched only through television and/or online because of the pandemic, it still gives an excitement to the people. With NASA astronauts, Bob Behnken and Douglas Hurley on board, they confirmed that they docked to the International Space Station (ISS) at exactly 10:16 am (EDT) of May 31.
This is a good comeback after 9 years since the United States no longer have any spacecraft system to send humans to space after the STS-135, the final mission of the Space Shuttle Program way back in 2011. Subsequently, it used Russian Facilities that cost up to $80 million per astronaut that is sent to ISS.
This time started it all as NASA engaged private companies like SpaceX as an alternative to lessen the cost up to 50% less than Soyuz and awarded them $3.1 billion for the Dragon development. DEMO 2 is expected to be the last major test of SpaceX to be certified by NASA.
The mission is named as Dragon Crew Demo-2 to transport crews to the ISS or International Space Station as NASA and SpaceX as the operators. The COSPAR ID is 2020-033A to identify it in space and with the SATCAT number of 45623 in order to a discovery of a man-made object in Earth’s orbit. The spacecraft used is named as “Crew Dragon C206 Endeavor” manufactured by SpaceX with a launch mass of 553.25 ton (563,254 kg or 1,219,716 lbs.)
The mission’s launch date, as we all know is May 30, 2020, with the use of Falcon 9 rocket at Kennedy LC-39A as Douglas G. Hurley and Robert L. Behnken as the crew. The mission duration is expected to be 30-90 days which is between the 29th of June and 28th of August 2020 and will land in the Atlantic Ocean.