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Blog / 04 Jun 2020

(Daily News Scan - DNS English) Space-X: Human's Odyssey into Space

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(Daily News Scan - DNS English) Space-X: Human's Odyssey into Space


The recent visit of the two American Astronauts to the International Space station has been the talk of the town. This is not the first visit of human beings to the space station. But this visit gathered attention and created excitement among people around the globe because of the agency that facilitated the trip. This was the first time that the astronauts were sent to space in a spaceship built and launched privately. This is definitely the beginning of a new era in space exploration.

In today’s DNS we will talk about this space mission in detail.

Sunday Night marked the beginning of a new Era in field of space exploration. Two astronauts- Robert Behnken and Douglas Hurley, flew on board a spaceship named Crew Dragon built by SpaceX. The rocket that named Falcon9 carrying the space ship into the orbit was also made by SpaceX. The mission was called Demo-2, in keeping with the fact that it was still only a ‘test flight’, which if successful, would lead to more missions in the coming months. The SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket carrying the Crew Dragon spacecraft lifted off from launch complex 39A at the Kennedy Space Centre. This is the same Launchpad from which Saturn V rocket for the Apollo 11 Mission had taken off, carrying the first humans to the Moon.

Douglas Hurley (53) has been an astronaut of NASA since 2000 after serving as a fighter pilot and test pilot in the US Marina Corps. He has completed two spaceflights — STS-127 and STS-136. During this mission, Hurley will be handling launch, landing and recovery of the spacecraft. Veteran Airforce test pilot Bob Behnken became an astronaut in July, 2000. On this mission activities such as rendezvous, docking, and undocking are the responsibility of Behnken. He has completed two space shuttle flights in March 2008 and February 2010, and performed three spacewalks during each mission.

Once they successfully are docked, they will board the International Space Station and become members of the Expedition 63 Crew, and will perform tests on the Crew Dragon and conduct research.

Space-X has become the first ever private company to launch human beings into orbit. Space-x Company has been founded by Elon Musk heads Tesla Motors. The launch was also significant as the space flight took off after a long gap since the year 2011. As it was the first flight of its astronauts on an American spaceship, launched on American soil, after nine years Both the Astronauts will be spending a duration of 4 months at the International Space station. The Astronauts will be first orbiting around Earth for 19 hours and also occasionally fly it manually to share their experience with other future crew. With the launch of privately developed spaceships, it has opened doors for NASA to concentrate on deep space exploration, and work more vigorously towards taking humans to moon, and Mars.

The involvement of the private industry in the space sector is nothing new. All over the world work of space agencies is being done in collaboration with private companies. There are hundreds of private companies who are engaged in building commercial satellites for their clients. While there are a lot many private companies operating in the space sector in the United States. Most of them collaborate with the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO), in building and fabricating the components that go into making rockets and satellites. This mission that took off on Sunday portrays the fact that space research and exploration is now a much more collaborative enterprise than earlier. Space agencies of different countries are not just sharing data and resources, but increasingly getting together to carry out joint missions as well. Now with the first step taken by a private company Space-X for ferrying humans to space, more private investors are expected to infuse fresh investments, and also technological innovation that will benefit everyone. This will help in carrying out more research in terms of space exploration and ferrying humans to moon and other planets without having to spend a large amount. Also inviting private companies is expected to exponentially bring down the cost of space travel.