Aboard the Falcon 9, the spacecraft Crew Dragon, this time only the doll is Ripley, covered with sensors and wearing a space suit. The launch, if all goes as planned, lead to manned travel with the living people later in the year.
At 08.49 utc sent Elon Musks company Space X up the dock to the ISS.
and when it became clear that the first part of the launch was successful broke the cheers and applause out inside at Space X’s headquarters. Outside was a crowd gathered to witness the launch.
“This is a very important event in U.S. history, said Nasa manager Jim Bridenstine to a throng of journalists at Cape Canaveral in Florida before the launch and continued:
” We are standing on the threshold to get in the way american astronauts in american rockets from american soil again, for the first time since the space shuttles retired in 2011.
the Doll Ripley is named after Sigourney Weaver’s heroine in ”Alien-movies”, but is at the same time strikingly similar to David Bowie, inspired by the Starman. There is dock Space X in another testuppskjutning sent out in space, sitting in a Roadster from the Musks elbilsmärke Tesla, last year.
spinning around in the solar system in like forever it will just be a shorter outing for Ripley. She should be arriving at the ISS on Sunday, to return to earth in about a week. If all goes well, a Crew Dragon with real astronauts getting in the way as soon as July, according to Nasa.
During the eight years without space shuttles, the united states has paid Russia up to approximately 800 million sek per trip to bring up the personnel to the ISS. Now, should Nasa get better value for money, according to Bridenstine. Especially as you let private companies take a lot of risks. In addition to the Space X also has Boeing contract to develop the spacecraft. Boeing Starliner will also be tested later in the spring, it is supposed to.
“We are just a customer,” says Bridenstine.