![]() ![]() Meet the NASA astronauts launching on SpaceX's historic Crew Dragon test flightįollow on Facebook and on Twitter at.Elon Musk 'overcome with emotion' after SpaceX's 1st astronaut launch.Williams, who is assigned to launch on the first operational Starliner mission, chose "Calypso" to honor Jacques Cousteau's ocean research vessel. EDT (0628 GMT), riding a towering column of white smoke in a rare night liftoff from Launch Pad. In December 2019, NASA astronaut Suni Williams was given the honor of picking the first name given to a CST-100 Starliner, Boeing's commercial spacecraft that will also fly crews to the space station. Endeavour and its seven-astronaut crew successfully left Earth at 2:28 a.m. ![]() It also is the second commercial crew capsule to be named after a historic ship (by way of the space shuttle's namesake). crewed spacecraft to bear the name, after the retired orbiter and the Apollo 15 command module Endeavour that orbited the moon during the fourth moon landing mission in 1971. The Crew Dragon Endeavour is now the third U.S. The first four space shuttle orbiters to launch into space were named by NASA for "sea vessels used in world exploration." Endeavour, which was built to replace the ill-fated shuttle Challenger, was named in a national competition for schools after the HMS Endeavour, the ship that took Captain James Cook on his 18th century voyage of discovery. The Apollo 15 command and service module "Endeavour" is seen from the lunar module "Falcon" in lunar orbit during NASA's fourth moon landing mission in August 1971. In photos: SpaceX's historic Demo-2 test flight with astronauts By comparison, SpaceX's Dragon is outfitted with touchscreens and can fly autonomously, though it too has some buttons for key functions and commands. "We're doing in a brand-new spaceship," said Behnken, "that is a lot different than its namesake - Endeavour, the space shuttle - in that it has touch display screens that allow us to accomplish most of the interfacing requirements that we have."Īlthough the shuttle orbiters, including Endeavour, were upgraded with "glass cockpits" that replaced many of their analog dials and gauges with digital displays, they were flown using buttons, switches and a physical hand controller (or stick). The Crew Dragon Endeavour has little in common with the space shuttle, having been designed by SpaceX to be a 21st century vehicle. Hurley also flew a second time on the space shuttle, but aboard Atlantis, as the pilot of the final flight of the shuttle program, STS-135 in 2011. Behnken preceded him aboard the orbiter by two flights, launching as an STS-123 mission specialist the year earlier.īehnken flew again on Endeavour on STS-130, the orbiter's penultimate mission, in 2010. Hurley's first launch was as the pilot of the shuttle Endeavour's 23rd mission, STS-127 in 2009. So that is what we decided to go with," he said. We both had our first flights on shuttle Endeavour, and it just meant so much to us to carry on that name. "The other reason we named it 'Endeavour' is a little more personal for Bob and I. launchpad and the first ever by a commercial company. About $360 million of the $400 million cost has been raised."One, because of this incredible endeavor NASA, SpaceX and the United States has been on since the end of the space shuttle program back in 2011," he said, referencing the space agency's commercial crew program that led up to their orbital launch, the first in nine years from a U.S. In addition to completing the building, about 100 other aircraft and spacecraft will be installed along with numerous interpretive exhibits, Rudolph said. The 116-foot-long (35.3-meter-long) rocket motors were trucked to Los Angeles from the Mojave Desert in October and installed the following month. In use, the boosters would be attached to the external tank to help the shuttle’s main engines lift off. ![]() It began in July with precise installation of the bottom segments of the side boosters, known as aft skirts, for the first time outside of a NASA facility. The process of assembling the shuttle system in vertical configuration was dubbed “Go for Stack,” an informal term for putting together rocket components for launch. A groundbreaking ceremony for the Air and Space Center was held in 2022 on the 11th anniversary of Endeavour’s final return from space. The shuttle was initially displayed horizontally in a temporary exhibit hall. The external tank arrived by barge and made a similar trip across the city. The shuttle was flown to Los Angeles International Airport in 2012 atop a NASA Boeing 747 and then created a spectacle as it was inched through tight city streets to Exposition Park. Endeavour flew 25 missions between 19, when NASA’s shuttle program ended.
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