The SpaceX Crew Dragon

SpaceX is a private space company that designs, manufactures and launches advanced rockets and spacecraft. The company was founded in the year 2002 to revolutionise space technology. SpaceX is owned by Elon Musk, who is the richest man on the Earth and he is also the owner of Tesla, the car company.

SpaceX has many spaceships but the one we are focusing on is the Crew Dragon. It has 7 seats for astronaut crew and many storage compartments, but NASA chose only four seats because then they can store even more cargo. The biggest customer of SpaceX is NASA (National Aeronautics and Space Administration). There were 2 options to reach the ISS (International Space Station); it was a Space Shuttle but was retired in 2011, and the Soyuz MS-FG spacecraft, which had its final launch on September 25, 2019. The Soyuz-FG was the only vehicle used to launch crewed spacecraft to ISS from 2002 to 2019.

In 2020, SpaceX released their Crew Dragon, which would take humans to the ISS and also the cargo. There are many versions of the Crew Dragon, like Crew Dragon Endeavour, Dragon 2 and Cargo Dragon. Some of these versions have gone to space more than once, like Endeavour has gone 3 times to ISS.

The rocket from which the crew Dragon reaches space is the Falcon-9. The first stage has nine Merlin engines, hence the name Falcon-9. Stage 2 has a vacuum Merlin engine. There are only two stages that are reversible; they are stage 1 and the capsule. Unlike NASA, SpaceX assembles their rocket sideways. SpaceX uses NASA’s launch sites to launch their rockets at Kennedy Space Centre, Florida, USA.

NASA has requested SpaceX to bring back the stranded astronauts, Sunita William and Butch Willmore, from the ISS. Due to some technical difficulties, the Boeing Star liner returned to earth without its crew members on September 7, 2024.

SpaceX launched Crew Dragon spacecraft with astronaut Nick Hague and cosmonaut Aleksander Gorbunov. The Crew Dragon spacecraft has a trunk that carries unpressured cargo. One half of the trunk is covered in solar panels that provide power to the spacecraft.

The crew will spend about five months on board the space station and bring the stranded astronauts back to earth. They are estimated to come back on 25th February 2025.

I send my best wishes to all crew members and hope for their safe return to the Earth.

Author: Saiaansh Dey

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