A member of NASA’s security advisory board said SpaceX’s second operational spacecraft, Crew Dragon, would conduct the International Space Station’s first “flyaround” in years.
Similar flight maneuvers were common in the days of the space shuttle, when the US and Russia were slowly but surely assembling the ISS from scratch in Low Earth Orbit (LEO) – primarily to document this undeniable historical process. In 2011, NASA and Roscosmos planned the last flight in seven years to capture the space shuttle Discovery on its final mission (including the first of the shuttle’s last three launches) and the more or less completed space station. While the spacecraft’s infrequent relocation maneuver still results in the occasional partial flight, it took more than seven years to complete. next flight – also from the Soyuz spacecraft – completed in October 2018 and took incredible photos of the ISS before its 20th anniversary in orbit.
Now, more than three years after the Soyuz MS-08 flyaround, SpaceX is slated to continue that tradition as early as November 2021, making the Crew Dragon the third manned visitor vehicle out of three to conduct a full flyaround survey of ~450 tons (million pounds) post orbit. .
Interesting note from the Aerospace Safety Advisory Panel meeting: Panel member David West said SpaceX’s Crew Dragon will make a 360-degree flight around the ISS upon departure in early mid-November, the first 360-degree flight of a US occupation ship since the shuttle.
– Stephen Clark (@ StephenClark1) 23 September 2021
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Subject to changes in plans, the crew of Dragon Endeavor (C206) flown twice will perform maneuvers immediately after the second release from the space station (including relocation maneuvers) with ESA Crew-2 astronaut Thomas Pesquet, JAXA astronaut Akihiko Hoshide, and NASA-Astronaut Shane Kimbrough and Megan McArthur. According to a meeting of the Aerospace Safety Advisory Panel (ASAP), which first broke the news of the flyover, the Crew-2 departure from the ISS remains on track for early to mid-November.
In the 5-6 weeks between then and now, SpaceX is scheduled to release the Cargo Dragon 2 C208 spacecraft and bring it back to Earth to complete the CRS-23 reload mission and the second journey of the C208 capsule into orbit, and to release one of two ports. American ISS docking. Then SpaceX will take another group of astronauts to the ISS as part of the Crew Dragon’s third operational crew transfer mission (Crew-3). Crew-3 remains on track to launch as early as October 31 (NET), where it and astronauts King Chari, Thomas Marshburn, Kayla Barron and Matthias Maurer will briefly meet Crew-2 and their kites on the ISS.
Handover completed, Crew-2 and Dragon Endeavor were then able to leave the ISS, conduct the first 360-degree orbital survey in years and return to Earth after more than six months of orbit. Due to years of technical and programmatic delays, it’s unlikely that Boeing – NASA’s other commercial crew partner – will not be ready to support operational astronaut launches until late 2022 at the earliest, possibly guaranteeing that one or even two more Dragon-to-Dragon crew handovers. before Starliner Dragon could rest. In other words, SpaceX is well on its way to ensuring NASA’s continued access to the International Space Station for two full years — and maybe even longer.
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