[imagesource: Bill Ingalls/NASA]

Elon Musk’s space program, SpaceX, spent the better part of six years getting to a place where it can successfully launch astronauts into orbit.

Last year, the company did a full dress rehearsal, launching the Crew Dragon to the International Space Station (ISS) without a crew on board.

Then in May this year, the company successfully launched two NASA astronauts, Robert Behnken and Douglas Hurley, to the ISS in a mission called Demo-2.

The astronauts carried out a number of tasks and experiments while on the station, with Hurley snapping some great photos of what can be seen from space, including pictures of Cape Town, Joburg, and Pretoria.

The historic mission marked the first launch of a US spacecraft since 2011, but it wasn’t over. The spaceship needed to make it back to Earth without a hitch.

And it did, in NASA’s first water landing since 1975. Behnken and Hurley splashed down on Sunday in the Gulf of Mexico.

Over to The New York Times:

Suspended under four giant billowing orange-and-white parachutes, the Crew Dragon settled into calm waters near Pensacola, Fla. at a gentle pace of 15 miles per hour. Two small SpaceX boats arrived quickly to begin the operation to prepare the capsule to be pulled out by the main recovery ship, where crews will tend to the spacecraft’s passengers.

Watch the landing below:

Well done, chaps. You made it.

The Dragon reentered the Earth’s atmosphere using a series of thruster burns to move away from the ISS, and then line up with the splashdown site.

Before leaving orbit on Sunday, the spacecraft jettisoned its bottom half, known as the trunk, which will no longer be needed. That exposes the heat shield that protects the capsule and astronauts during re-entry.

“Oh yeah, we felt it,” Mr. Hurley said after the manoeuvre was confirmed on the ground.

One more thruster burn that lasted roughly 11 minutes was completed causing the capsule to drop out of orbit, headed toward its landing site at sea.

If you’re really committed, you can watch the journey from the ISS piloted by the astronauts, from their first manoeuvre in orbit to splashdown:

Hurley and Behnken were in good spirits upon exiting the spacecraft.

“You should take a moment to just cherish this day, especially given all the things that have happened this year,” Mr. Hurley said as he exited the Crew Dragon.

He added that he felt “proud to be a small part of this whole effort,” to carry people to and from space.

The only blight on an otherwise thrilling day was the appearance of private boats that could have proven dangerous:

Before the recovery ship hoisted the capsule out of the water and prepared to open the capsule’s hatch, a flotilla of small private boats piloted by onlookers also converged around the bobbing capsule. At least one of them flew a banner supporting President Trump.

Personnel aboard SpaceX’s boats chased them farther away; there is a possibility of toxic propellant fumes from the spacecraft thrusters, which could endanger passengers on other vessels nearby.

Detection of the fumes in fact caused a short delay in opening the hatch to release the astronauts from the capsule.

Hurley told mission control, “Let’s just keep everyone safe, no reason to rush”.

All in all, the mission was a triumph for space travel.

This could change everything.

Branson, the race is on.

[source:nytimes]