Cape Canaveral, Florida — After three days of space flight, SpaceX’s first all-civilian crew returned to Earth tonight, jumping off the Florida coast to complete their historic mission.
SpaceX Crew Dragon Resilience landed gently at 7:06 pm EDT (2306 GMT) tonight (September 18) in the Atlantic Ocean off Cape Canaveral, Florida. Inspiration 4 Mission, a private space flight with four civilians in orbit earlier this week.
The flight was part of a large fundraising campaign at St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital. Jared Isaacman, a millionaire and four of Shift 4 Payments, SpaceX To raise $ 200 million for childhood cancer research.
“Welcome to SpaceX’s leading inspiration 4, Planet Earth,” Chris Young, SpaceX Mission Control’s Space Operations Director, told the crew after a successful splashdown. “Your mission has shown to the world that the universe is for all of us and that everyday people can have an extraordinary impact on the world around us. Your leadership, hope, generosity, Thank you for sharing your prosperity and congratulations. “
“Thank you very much, SpaceX. It was a tough ride for us,” Isaacman replied. “We are just getting started.”
video: Splashdown! SpaceX Inspiration 4 crew returns to Earth
Live update: SpaceX Inspiration 4 Private All Private Orbit Mission
He is joined by Hayley Arceneaux, a doctor’s assistant and a survivor of childhood cancer. Data engineer Chris Sembroski. Sian Proctor, a geoscientist and professor at a community college. Four citizens made up the crew of Inspiration 4, and their flight is the first time a spacecraft has carried humans into space without a professional astronaut.
Read more about the crew:
In orbit, the crew conducted a number of medical experiments and collected samples and data to help researchers better understand how microgravity affects the human body.
During the flight, the crew traveled to an altitude of 367 miles (590 km) from Earth. According to SpaceX — Higher than both the International Space Station and the Hubble Space Telescope. Hopefully it will provide more insight into cosmic radiation and its impact on humans.
“It’s really interesting to see how fluids change in this micro-gravity environment,” Arsenault told viewers on Friday (September 17th) in-flight broadcast. “And that’s what scientists are seeing, so we’re happy to contribute with it.”
“We also took some cotton swabs from different parts of our body to evaluate the microbiome and how it changes in the last three days in space,” she said. Added. “I also provide a lot of samples, blood samples for the research team, but also do cognitive tests.”
They were also treated with spectacular views of the planet below. Their spacecraft, Crew Dragon Resilience, underwent its own modifications after the last space flight. SpaceX engineers removed and replaced the aircraft docking adapter Huge dome window, Called a cupola.
“We’ve spent a lot of time in this cupola, and we can see the whole globe, it’s like that. [an] “It’s an incredible point of view,” Arseno said during the broadcast.
Proctor and Arsenor demonstrated that multiple crew members could fit in a cupola at once, and said the crew members were staring at the Earth as much time as possible. Proctor showed off one of the paintings she is working on in space. This is their depiction. Dragon spaceship It jumps out into space and is drawn with a metal marker.
Before the launch, she was particularly excited to see how her paints and markers work under microgravity. This is because fluids behave in space very differently than they do on Earth.
Sembroski added, “The crew is bringing more humanities into space as the mission aims to open the final frontier to more people, especially those who are not professional astronauts. “.
And that means music as well as art projects. Sembroski brought a custom ukulele made for the mission. He said he enjoyed practicing playing instruments in microgravity and even playing some chords on the air.
“One of the most fun parts of being in space is microgravity,” Arsenor added, adding that the lack of gravity “allowed us to do all sorts of cool flips and spins.” rice field.
Her crew said she had a lot of flips inside Microgravity.. They also took some time to actually show off the zero g indicator selected for the mission. Certain stuffed animals of the crew’s choice are typically used to indicate that the crew has arrived in space.
For this particular mission, the crew I chose a stuffed animal This represents the therapy dog adopted by St. Jude.
“So whenever we arrived in space to show that we were really in a weightless environment, this was what we had to throw away first,” Arsenor said, floating around the cabin. rice field. “This little guy, so cute, he represents the St. Jude Therapy Dog.”
She goes on to say that St. Jude has two Golden Retriever dogs that can sit with the kids when they’re scared, and MRI and CAT scanning devices before the kids show that they aren’t. You can even go through. very scary.
“So we wanted to take one of these really sweet dogs into space,” Arseno said. “But what’s really cool is that these dogs are on sale and all the money from the sale of the Zero g indicator goes to St. Jude.”
The crew was also able to call patients in St. Jude from space, chat with the children, and answer their questions.
As the crew returns to Earth, they are checked out by medical staff and then sent via helicopter to NASA’s Space Shuttle landing facility. Their dragon capsules may move through Port Canaveral to the SpaceX facility, where they will be unloaded, inspected, and ready to fly again. At this point, I don’t know what the next mission will be.
SpaceX is planning another civil flight early next year. Its mission is to partner with Axiom Space to transport a crew of four civilians (including one former NASA astronaut) on a journey to the International Space Station.
Follow Amy Thompson on Twitter @ astrogingersnap. Follow us on Twitter @ Spacedotcom or Facebook.
SpaceX Inspiration4 astronauts return to Earth with historic splashdown off Florida coast Source link SpaceX Inspiration4 astronauts return to Earth with historic splashdown off Florida coast
The post SpaceX Inspiration4 astronauts return to Earth with historic splashdown off Florida coast appeared first on California News Times.
