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The SpaceX Crew Dragon spacecraft that carried four astronauts to the International Space Station in November broke Sunday’s record for the longest spaceflight by an American crew, surpassing the 84-day mark set by an Apollo capsule on the last flight to the Skylab space station. in 1974.
The Crew Dragon “Resilience” spacecraft was launched on November 15 from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida, driving a Falcon 9 rocket into orbit before docking with the International Space Station the next day.
Commander Michael Hopkins led the crew of four, along with pilot Victor Glover and mission specialists Soichi Noguchi and Shannon Walker. The mission, designated Crew-1, is the first operational flight for SpaceX’s Crew Dragon spacecraft and the first Crew Dragon to carry four astronauts.
Last year, a test flight aboard SpaceX’s Crew Dragon “Endeavor” capsule transported NASA astronauts Doug Hurley and Bob Behnken to the space station. This test flight lasted 64 days.
The 84-day milestone for the Crew Dragon Resilience spacecraft on Sunday broke a record set in 1974 by the Skylab 4 mission. The three-man Skylab 4 crew flew an Apollo spacecraft to the space station NASA’s Skylab in low Earth orbit, and their mission ended on February 8, 1974 with a dip in the Pacific Ocean. It was the last mission to Skylab station before it returned to the atmosphere in 1979.
Science pilot Edward Gibson is the only surviving member of the Skylab 4 crew. Commander Gerald Carr passed away last year and pilot William Pogue passed away in 2014.
Hopkins and his teammates had a video conference with Gibson on Sunday.
On our 84th day in space, Crew-1 extends the record for most days in space for an American human space capsule. Originally set up in 1973-74 by the Skylab 4 crew of Gerald Carr, Edward Gibson and William Pogue. Today we had the honor of speaking with Ed. pic.twitter.com/4olxP1CPFv
– Victor Glover (@AstroVicGlover) February 7, 2021
“Today Crew-1 broke the record for the longest US space capsule mission, the Skylab 4’s 84-day record in 1974, “tweeted Noguchi, a Japanese astronaut.,” We were honored and delighted to speak to Astronaut Skylab. Ed Gibson. “
The astronauts on Crew 1 are about halfway through their planned five-and-a-half-month mission. The Crew Dragon Resilience spacecraft is scheduled to detach from the space station and return to Earth with a parachute-assisted splashdown off the coast of Florida around May 1.
SpaceX’s growing fleet of Crew Dragon capsules are designed to fly in low earth orbit for up to 210 days per mission, a requirement set by NASA. The US space agency has contracted with SpaceX and Boeing to develop and fly commercial crew capsules of human value to the space station, ending NASA’s dependence on Russian Soyuz spacecraft for service. transport of astronauts.
The three Apollo flights to the Skylab space station lasted 28 days, 59 days and 84 days. NASA space shuttles were limited to flights of a few weeks, with the longest shuttle flight lasting almost 18 days in 1996.
Hopkins, Glover, Noguchi and Walker are joined on the space station by Russian commander Sergey Ryzhikov, flight engineer Sergey Kud-Sverchkov and NASA astronaut Kate Rubins. Ryzhikov, Kud-Sverchkov and Rubins launched on October 14 on a Russian Soyuz spacecraft.
A new three-person crew will embark on the upcoming Russian Soyuz mission on April 9, followed by the Ryzhikov crew departing in mid-April to head for a landing in the steppes of Kazakhstan, capping a six-month flight on the Soyuz MS -17 spaceships.
Before the Crew Dragon Resilience spacecraft returns to Earth, SpaceX’s next manned capsule is expected to take off on April 20 from the Kennedy Space Center with four new astronauts to launch a nearly six-month rotation on the International Space Station.
NASA Commander Shane Kimbrough, Pilot Megan McArthur, Japanese Astronaut Akihiko Hoshide and European Space Agency Astronaut Thomas Pesquet are training for the Crew-2 mission, which will reuse the Crew Dragon Endeavor capsule flown on the Demo-2 test flight last year.
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Follow Stephen Clark on Twitter: @ StephenClark1.
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