ABC CienciaMadrid Updated: Save Send news by mail electrónicoTu name *
Your email *
email *
“Today, we have garnered a huge victory and has only been the beginning,” he said this Sunday, Jim Bridenstine , the administrator of NASA, in the press conference held right after the successful splashdown of the capsule “Crew Dragon” off the coast of Florida. The ship, operated and designed by the company SpaceX, brought to the Earth by the astronauts to Doug Hurley and Bob Behnken after its stay at the International Space Station. What is more important is that this event has marked the beginning of an era in which NASA will use to ship american to send their astronauts into space for the first time since 2011, leaving behind their dependence on the Russian ships “Soyuz”.
But this “new era of human space flight”, in the words of Bridenstine, in which, in addition, a private company will have the leading role for the first time, began with a few moments of concern. Such as has been recognized by the administrator of the NASA, it was not foreseen that the capsule “Crew Dragon” to stay surrounded by boats private packed with the curious who did not want to miss the event, as reported by “Space.com”.
A swarm of boats around the ship
The expectation was huge, thanks to the media hype of the NASA and taking into account that, since 1975, no astronaut had amerizado in the ocean in front of us shores.
in Addition, in this case, the live broadcast of the maneuvers and the power of social media allowed a swarm of ships is approaching the capsule when rested in the Atlantic, waiting for the arrival of the rescue teams . Even, one of the curious did not hesitate to display a flag in support of the president of the united States, Donald Trump, to scarce meters of the “Crew Dragon”.
Several people come to few meters of the capsule, minutes after splashdown – NASA TV
“This is not what we expected,” he acknowledged Jim Bridenstine. “As they landed, the boats arrived. We need to do better next time to be safe.”
as has been explained to the administrator of NASA, the coast guard service of the country cleared the area before landing but, how to vessel collection of SpaceX, “Go Navigator” took 30 minutes on getting, several boats had had time to get close to the capsule.
Lessons for next mission
“The capsule was in the water a good amount of time and the ships simply made a row,” said Bridenstine. “There are things that we are going to review and that we clearly need to do better.”
Several speedboats SpaceX departed the boats private, but still could be seen clearly in the background, during the collection operations.
“The lesson learned is that probably we need more media of the coast guard, and perhaps SpaceX and NASA,” said Gwynne Shotwell , president of SpaceX. “This has been a mission of proof. So this is the occasion in which you learn this kind of things, and why we will be better prepared next time”.
In fact, the official name of this mission is “Demo-2”, for its role as a demonstration . It was launched on the 30th of may, months after the first unmanned flight of the “Crew Dragon” (name “Demo-1”), and its mission was to test the systems of the apparatus that astronauts need in the way of her space.
it Is planned that in September, SpaceX to begin manned flight operational and later the Boeing company test your own capsule tripulable, the Starliner, designed to land on earth. This would be the second company to provide to NASA the service of transfer of the astronauts, lowering costs in comparison with the space shuttles, and even the Soyuz.
See the comments Comments
