I am going to devote my article of this week to the event that constitutes, for all those of my contemporaries who thirst for Space, the launch to the ISS on their own launcher, of the first manned capsule designed and produced by Elon Musk and his company SpaceX.
It will be necessary to wait to celebrate the event that not only the two passengers of the capsule nicely named “Crew-Dragon Demo-2”, arrived in the ISS but also that they returned to Earth unharmed with the same capsule .
As it is Saturday morning, before the second attempt to launch (at 9:35 p.m.), the first having been canceled for bad weather, Wednesday May 27, we can only hope that everything is going well.
You have to see that in any case the Russians will continue to have their access to the ISS (International Space Station, launched in 1998) with their launcher and their Soyuz capsule and that what practically changes with this flight is the direct access by Americans after 10 years of incapacity. But of course the Russians will keep their own direct access with this same launcher and this same capsule (first flight 1966!). Since April 17, “Expedition-63” has been underway. It started with the arrival of the Soyuz “MS-15” capsule and will last until October. Today it is made up of 3 people (one American and two Russians). So join the two astronauts from the Crew Dragon Demo-2 and, if this flight goes well (with return!), The three astronauts from the “normal” American flight who, once again using the SpaceX launcher and capsule , “USCV1” (for US Crew Vehicle 1), will replace their fellow citizens on August 20.
In both cases, the launcher will be the very classic Falcon-9 (no failure since 2016, 85 successes on 87 launches in 10 years). From this point of view, the launch of Saturday will not be a performance (even if it has undergone some adaptations to take care of passengers) because the rocket has demonstrated its capabilities at departure and especially the famous recovery for reuse, after performing the start. The peculiarity is obviously that this flight will be manned and that we can not help but fear that “something” is going wrong.
What is important is that in the event of success not only will the Americans regain their autonomy for manned flights but also and I would say, above all, that Elon Musk will have taken a new step towards the realization of his Martian project.
It’s not that you’re planning to go into the Martian environment (without imagining “going down to the planet”) with the Crew Dragon. Even if it is more spacious than the previous capsules, it remains a capsule of 4 meters in diameter and it is much too small to accommodate a minimum of astronauts (at least two!) With their life support equipment for a very long time. trip. But, with this flight, Elon Musk will have made a spectacular new demonstration of his engineering capacities for unbeatable price conditions and he will open the floodgates of a new source of income for his company.
With a price of 55 million dollars, we lower the cost of launches by a notch, previously by around 90 million dollars (for example 424 million dollars paid by the Americans to Russia to transport 6 astronauts in 2016/17 ). NASA will find its account there and one can suppose it, also Elon Musk. We do not have a breakdown of its cost but we can hope that it will be compatible in the long term (that is to say the number of launches contracted with NASA) with profitability for it. The merit of private enterprise is that it is constrained by profitability. To be successful, the customer must be given a product at least as good and reliable as that of its competitors, and less expensive. For the moment this is what is on paper and the demonstration is about to take place.
Once the launch is complete and the Crew Dragon sector “on the way”, Elon Musk, morally comforted by his success, will be able to devote himself with even more energy to his Super-Heavy launcher and his Starship spaceship necessary for his interplanetary projects. Here too I wish him spectacular progress. I remind you that the objective was to land a first human crew on Mars in 2024 … which seems a little presumptuous today. I would bet for 2026 which would already be very good!
NB: this message will be modified after the launch this evening, depending on events.
Title illustration: The Crew Dragon Demo-2 with its service module. SpaceX credit
–
