SpaceX Crew Dragon Just Aced A Record-Setting Maneuver For NASA
SpaceX's Crew Dragon capsule has done what no other commercial spacecraft has before it, successfully moving between ports at the International Space Station. The repositioning of the Crew Dragon "Resilience" – which has been at the ISS since mid-November 2020 – is an important demonstration of the spacecraft's ability to autonomously navigate and relocate around the orbiting technology and research platform.
It's the second such demonstration of that autonomous expertise for SpaceX and NASA. The arrival of "Resilience" at the ISS on November 17, 2020 saw it pilot itself in to dock at the Harmony module forward port. In the process, it became the first crewed operational flight of the Crew Dragon itself and, more broadly, of NASA's Commercial Crew Program as a whole.
Since then, the spacecraft has been safely locked in place, but NASA needed to move it for upcoming missions. Later this month, for example, NASA's SpaceX Crew-2 astronauts are scheduled to arrive at the ISS. Over the summer, meanwhile, new solar arrays are expected to be delivered for installation on the space station.
Crew Dragon's move took place this morning, with "Resilience" undocking from the Harmony module and then repositioning itself to re-dock at its zenith, or space-facing port. The whole process took roughly 45 minutes, and was carried out entirely autonomously. However, Astronauts Michael Hopkins, Victor Glover, and Shannon Walker of NASA and Soichi Noguchi of the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency were all onboard during the event.
It's an essential demonstration of an important part of Crew Dragon's abilities. While crew can enter and exit the spacecraft at both of the module ports, the layout of the International Space Station presents other challenges depending on the cargo of future missions.
The solar panels being delivered over the summer, for example, will be offloaded and installed using the ISS' robotic arm, Canadarm2. That's mounted on the exterior of Harmony, but will only reach as far as the upcoming Dragon with the panels when docked at the module's forward port.
Later, "Resilience" will be used by the four crew members onboard during this test repositioning for the return trip to Earth. That's scheduled to take place on April 28, 2021, with SpaceX planning to retrieve the capsule and refurbish it for another flight.
Meanwhile, SpaceX has been developing a second version of Crew Dragon, replacing the docking port on the top of the spacecraft with a glass domed viewport. This won't be used for ISS missions, but instead is intended to give space tourists an unprecedented view of Earth and space during future commercial flights.