Launch of the Falcon 9 rocket. What is behind its phenomenon

Be with us from midnight. We will broadcast the event on tvn24.pl.

Falcon 9 was supposed to take off on Saturday, but due to bad weather conditions the flight was canceled. There will be three Americans on board – Michael Hopkins, Victor Glover and Shannon Walker, and the astronaut of the Japanese JAXA space agency – Soichi Noguchi. For the next six months, they will operate as part of the Crew 1 mission.

The Crew Dragon capsule rocket, produced by Elon Musk’s SpaceX, will be launched from Kennedy Space Centrum in Cape Canaveral, Florida on Sunday at 19.27 local time, i.e. on Monday at 1.27 Polish time.

– This will be the second manned space flight with astronauts on board made by this rocket. This rocket is unique in that NASA decided to use it from the private company SpaceX, because it can take off and then land. Thanks to this, the costs of space flight are significantly reduced. It all becomes more profitable – Karol Wójcicki, a promoter of astronomy, said in “Get up and weekend” on TVN24. He added that good weather must be at both the launch and landing sites of the rocket. “This landing site is an ocean-going barge a few hundred kilometers off the coast of Florida. The weather there was average on Saturday, so it was decided to postpone the start – he said.

A rocket that lands by itself

As Wójcicki said, the phenomenon of the Falcon 9 rocket is that it has to “hit” the right place for landing on a barge floating in the ocean.

“This is amazing,” said the astronomy popularizer. He added that the rocket was five-story high (54.9 meters high and 3.6 meters in diameter to be exact). – A man is tiny with her. Now you have to imagine that such a five-story building, such a tall pillar, from a height of about 80 kilometers, just falls vertically downwards. Only at the end, while maneuvering rocket engines, does it have to hit precisely this barge, several meters long. This is a real art – said Wójcicki on the air.

– A dozen or so months ago, a special mooring knot was installed, which allows the capsule to attach to the International Space Station. It is done automatically, but the astronauts control it all the time – explained Wójcicki. “A six-month mission will begin to carry out standard work on the space station,” he added.

Listen to the whole conversation with Karol Wójcicki:

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