Watch live on Youtube, the Crew Dragon of the company SpaceX to fall into the Atlantic Ocean as the astronauts inside it return to Earth.
SpaceX and NASA are preparing to complete their most significant joint mission to date. This is the Crew Dragon Demo-2, which is designed to carry people on regular space flights from Earth to the Space Station and back.
The Demo-2 is the first manned mission launched by the United States after the last Space Shuttle mission in 2011. The The first attempt to launch the Crew Dragon Demo-2 was for May 27, but was canceled due to bad weather caused by a tropical storm, 16 minutes and 53 seconds before launch. The second launch attempt was made on May 30, 2020 and was successful.
The spacecraft is now preparing to return from the space station and NASA astronauts have already boarded the Crew Dragon. The descent will take many hours and is expected to be completed late Sunday, at 21:48 Greek time, when they will fall into the Atlantic Ocean off the coast of Florida.
Astronauts Behnken and Hurley will return to Earth in a capsule and that is why they disconnected from the International Space Station early Sunday morning, at 02:00 on the morning of August 2, Greek time. The Crew Dragon capsule will do all the required maneuvering in a fully automated way, as it is designed to do.
SpaceX created Crew Dragon to be fully automated on both takeoff and return to Earth, as well as its approach to the ISS space station.
The Demo-2 capsule along with astronauts Behnken and Hurley is scheduled to fall into the Gulf of Mexico at 9:48 p.m. Greek time, where they will be approached and picked up by the people of SpaceX. This will be the first flight for a non-governmental, commercial spacecraft.
Once the Crew Dragon enters the atmosphere, it will deploy its parachutes, which will slow it down to about 24 miles per hour. The reason it requires so much taxid from the moment of departure until landing is that the craft must decelerate from the starting speed estimated at about 28.160 kilometers / hour, speed it has when leaving the ISS.
NASA and SpaceX will provide live coverage of the operation, in streaming and streaming you can see it here.
