A few hours ago, SpaceX’s Crew Dragon Endeavour spacecraft ended its Crew-2, or SpaceX Crew-2, mission on behalf of NASA by splashing down without problems. Onboard were astronauts Thomas Pesquet, Megan McArthur, Shane Kimbrough, and Akihiko Hoshide, who reached the International Space Station on April 24 and were part of the Expeditions 65 and 66. They finished SpaceX’s second regular crewed mission in the Atlantic Ocean off the coast of Pensacola, Florida. The Crew Dragon left the International Space Station about 8.5 hours earlier. Shortly after splashing down, the SpaceX ship called “Go Navigator” went to retrieve the Crew Dragon and its crew to transport them to the coast.
The end of the Crew-2 mission was a bit chaotic. NASA’s plans were to proceed with the launch of the Crew-3 mission first but a minor health problem to one of the astronauts led to a delay. At that point, NASA decided to proceed with the return to Earth of the Crew-2 mission as soon as the weather forecast was good in the splashdown area.
The return trip also had some minor problems. The Crew Dragon Endeavour’s toilet wasn’t working properly, so SpaceX decided that astronauts shouldn’t use it. During the last phase, one of the four parachutes took longer than the others to deploy properly. The system is redundant and already in the test phase such a problem hadn’t created any danger but SpaceX will carefully review the performance of the parachutes.
Despite these problems, the Crew-2 mission represents another success for SpaceX. With a duration of 199 days, it marked the new record for the longest space mission for an American spacecraft, breaking the one established by the Crew-1 mission. The Crew Dragon Endeavour spacecraft finished its second mission after last year’s Demo-2, confirming the reuse capability for which it was designed. It will be examined again to confirm the possibility that it will still be used in one of the upcoming SpaceX missions.
The Crew Dragon spacecraft can be improved to avoid the problems encountered in this return to Earth but NASA is pleased to have a spacecraft that is overall reliable to avoid remaining dependant on the Russian Soyuz to transport astronauts. While Boeing is at the center of controversy over the seemingly never-ending problems with its Starliner spacecraft, SpaceX continues to rack up success.
