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Two months ago, SpaceX and NASA announced a successful partnership to send two astronauts aboard the ISS. Several hours after the May 30 launch, Bob Behnken and Doug Hurley were able to join the crew already on board the Station, marking the success of the first big step of this mission. The second was to successfully bring the two men back to Earth using the same Crew Dragon capsule.
A success for SpaceX and NASA
It is now done, so that Bob Behnken and Doug Hurley returned to dry land yesterday, Sunday August 2nd. At 2:48 p.m. local time, the Crew Dragon capsule landed off the coast of Pensacola, Florida, in the Gulf of Mexico. As expected, the four huge parachutes were able to reduce the speed of the aircraft to 24 km / h before it landed in the water. Subsequently, they were recovered by the teams before returning to the coast.
The two astronauts are the first to go aboard the ISS using an American device developed by a private company. A few years ago, NASA put SpaceX and Boeing in competition to get the two companies to work on a vehicle capable of doing this type of travel. In this way, the country hopes to reduce its dependence on Russia, as the United States has been obliged to use the Soyuz ships for years.
This mission marks the first manned flight launched from the United States since 2011. It is also the first time since July 1975 that an American capsule has landed on Earth in this way.
This success is a first major step towards the certification that SpaceX must obtain in order to be able to launch regular missions to the International Space Station.
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