- Hi, it's me Tim Dodd, the Everyday Astronaut.
NASA has a new ride to the International Space Station
for its astronauts and it's SpaceX's Crew Dragon Capsule.
So I wanted to give you a super quick rundown
of the exact timing of all the events
that a crew heading out to the ISS will go through
on launch day, all the way from suit up
to docking with the station.
Now, we're not going to go over the Falcon 9 rocket
or the Crew Dragon Capsule's details.
If you need a rundown on that,
I've already got a video going into the exact hardware here,
comparing it to NASA's other new commercial ride,
the Boeing Starliner.
So check the description for a link to that video
and an article version of this video for future reference.
Okay, let's get started!
- [Announcer] Three, two, one, blastoff!
(futuristic EDM music)
- [Neil Armstrong] That's one small step for man.
- [Announcer] Here's SpaceX for the first one.
- The launch events start
at T-minus four hours 59 minutes and 59 seconds,
when the Dragon Capsule aligns
its inertial measurement units and is configured for launch.
T-minus four hours and thirty minutes.
The Crew Dragon Capsule's hypergolic fuels
for reaction control thrusters
and the Superdraco abort motors are pressurized for flight.
T-minus four hours fifteen minutes.
The crew hears a weather briefing before they suit up.
And if you wanna know what the criteria is to launch,
here it is on-screen,
but we also have a link to this in the description as well,
'cause there's a lot of stuff
to make sure that they're good to go for weather.
T-minus four hours and five minutes.
The crew is officially handed off from NASA to SpaceX,
which is bit of a formality
but signifies the astronauts are officially
in SpaceX's hands.
T-minus four hours.
The crew suits up at Kennedy Space Center's
Neil Armstrong Operations and Checkout Building.
T-minus three hours and 22 minutes.
The crew leaves the building and gets into NASA
and SpaceX's Tesla ModelX crew transportation vehicles.
In other words, the crew gets suited up
and ready to go in just 38 minutes,
which is faster than most of us get ready for work
in the morning.
T-minus three hours 15 minutes.
The crew departs the Ops and Checkout building
and heads the 13.6 kilometers, or 8.5 miles,
to historic Launch Complex 39A.
T-minus two hours 55 minutes.
The crew arrives at the pad.
Since they will travel about 13.6 km in 20 minutes,
it means they'll only average
around 40 kilometers an hour.
Come on!
I mean, they should turning on ludicrous mode
and put on a show for everybody!
T-minus two hours and 40-ish minutes or so.
The crew will do that ultimate walk
across the Crew Access Arm.
Now, hopefully they'll walk in slow-mo
so we get some of that awesome cinematic footage.
T-minus two hours 35 minutes.
The crew enters the Dragon.
T-minus two hours and 20 minutes.
There's a communications check
between the crew and the Mission Control.
T-minus two hours 15 minutes.
The seats rotate up,
putting the astronauts more on their backs
and closer to the screens and controls.
Immediately after at T-minus two hours 14 minutes,
they check for leaks in the suits
and verify that they're good to go.
T-minus one hour 55 minutes.
The hatch is closed up
and the ground support crew leaves the pad.
T-minus one hour and 10 minutes.
The exact state and location
of the International Space Station is uploaded
to the Dragon Capsule's navigation.
T-minus 45 minutes.
The go/no-go poll is taken to fuel up the rocket.
T-minus 42 minutes.
The Crew Access Arm is retracted.
T-minus 37 minutes.
The Dragon Capsule's launch escape system is armed,
which gives the crew the ability to abort from the rocket
if there were a problem during fuel up or during ascent.
T-minus 35 minutes.
Both the RP-1 rocket fuel
and the cryogenic liquid oxygen begin loading
into the first stage of the rocket
and the RP-1 is loaded into the second stage.
It's around this time
that you'll notice the rocket begins to look all smokey.
That's not smoke.
That's condensation from the cold, cold liquid oxygen
loading into the vehicle.
SpaceX super-chills the liquid oxygen
down to -207 degrees Celsius,
which is just shy of the -219 degrees Celsius
that would turn the oxygen into a solid.
But this helps maximize performance and density.
As the liquid oxygen sits inside the relatively warm rocket,
it's going to warm up and boil off into a gas,
which expands nearly 1,000 times in volume
and needs to be vented out.
Now, it's still extremely cold
and when it vents out into the atmosphere,
it's going to create little clouds of condensation
due to coming in contact with the humidity in the air.
Now, this is normal
and it's a good sign that fueling is under way.
T-minus 16 minutes.
The liquid oxygen begins filling the second stage.
T-minus seven minutes.
The Falcon 9 begins to flow liquid oxygen
through the nine Merlin engines on the first stage,
conditioning them for the cryogenic temperatures
of the propellant that will be flowing through them soon.
T-minus five minutes.
The Dragon Capsule transitions to internal power.
T-minus one minute.
The flight computer begins final prelaunch checks
and the tanks get pressurized to flight pressure,
which is three bar.
T-minus 45 seconds.
The SpaceX launch director verifies they are go for launch
and it's officially time to get excited!
T-minus three seconds.
The nine Merlin engines ignite and ramp up to full thrust
while the hold down clamps hold onto the rocket
until T-minus zero.
This allows enough time
to ensure all the engines are performing correctly
before committing to the launch.
And finally at T-minus zero seconds,
the clamps let go and the Falcon 9 lifts off the pad,
beginning its 19-hour journey
to the International Space Station.
Now, for the Demo 2 mission,
it'll be the first time humans leave the Earth
from the United States and go to orbit
since the Space Shuttle's last mission STS-135,
which took off from this exact pad in 2011.
In fact, one of the DM-2 astronauts,
Doug Hurley, was on STS-135!
That is so cool!
The rocket accelerates, ascending vertically
to get out of the thickest parts of the atmosphere,
but pretty soon it will begin to pitch over
and begins to accelerate horizontally.
The rocket really only goes up to get out of the atmosphere.
Getting it into orbit requires an awful lot
of horizontal velocity, around 27,000 kilometers an hour.
As I like to say, to get to space you go up;
to stay in space you go sideways, very, very fast.
T-plus 58 seconds.
The rocket encounters maximum aerodynamic pressure,
or max Q, which is when the vehicle experiences
the strongest aerodynamic forces on it.
After this point,
despite the rocket still going faster and faster,
the air is also going thinner and thinner
and eventually is pretty much non-existent.
T-plus two minutes 33 seconds.
The first stage engines shut down,
or main engine cut off occurs, otherwise known as MECO.
T-plus two minutes 36 seconds.
The first stage lets go of the second stage
for stage separation.
T-plus two minutes 44 seconds.
The second stage ignites
its single vacuum optimized Merlin engine
and continues to accelerate the vehicle
to orbital velocities.
At the same time, the Falcon 9 does something super unique.
Its first stage flips around
using some cold gas thrusters up on its interstage
and this ends up pointing the engines forward,
preparing the vehicle
to re-enter the atmosphere engines-first.
Now at this moment,
the first stage is still coasting upwards,
but after a few minutes,
it will begin to fall back down to Earth.
At around T-plus two minutes and 52 seconds,
you'll likely notice a ring fall off of the bell nozzle
of the Merlin vacuum engine.
Now, don't panic.
That's supposed to happen.
That's a cork ring stiffener
that holds the thin niobium nozzle extension in shape
and keeps it safe
while it's inside the interstage on ascent.
T-plus four minutes and 45 seconds.
The first stage booster has coasted
to its maximum altitude, or apogee, of about 149 kilometers
and begins to fall back down to earth.
T-plus seven minutes and 15 seconds.
The first stage begins to reenter the atmosphere
and lights up three of its nine Merlin engines
for an entry burn, which slows it down enough
to survive the intense reentry heating.
T-plus eight minutes 47 seconds.
The second stage cuts off,
officially placing the Dragon Capsule
into its initial parking orbit
of 190 kilometers by 205 kilometers and cheering will ensue.
T-plus eight minutes 52 seconds.
The first stage begins its landing burn
as it prepares to land
on the autonomous spaceport drone ship.
T-plus nine minutes 22 seconds.
The first stage lands on the drone ship
and cheering intensifies.
T-plus 12 minutes.
The Crew Dragon separates from the second stage.
T-plus 12 minutes 46 seconds.
The nosecone of the Dragon Capsule opens,
exposing the star tracker, which aides in navigation.
T-plus 49 minutes six seconds.
After a few check outs
of the Draco reaction control thrusters
and a few pointing maneuvers,
there's a phase burn of 16.11 meters per second
to align the orbits of the Dragon
and the International Space Station.
T-plus nine hours 44 minutes and 44 seconds.
There's another phase adjustment burn.
T-plus 11 hours 10 minutes 15 seconds.
The Dragon Capsule performs a 44.2 meter per second burn
using its Draco thrusters to boost its orbit closer
to the International Space Station.
T-plus 11 hours 55 minutes and one second.
There's another burn,
this time of 57.89 meters per second,
which circularizes the orbit.
T-plus 17 hours 40 minutes and 24 seconds.
After a few mid-course correction burns,
the Crew Dragon is approaching
the 400-meter keep out sphere, or KOS,
and requires a go/no-go poll from Mission Control
in order to continue.
T-plus 17 hours 50 minutes and 24 seconds.
The Dragon Capsule enters the keep out sphere
and hits Waypoint Zero,
which is 400 meters below the International Space Station.
T-plus 18 hours 15 minutes 24 seconds.
The Dragon Capsule arrives at Waypoint One
and holds approximately 220 meters away
to align to the docking axis.
T-plus 18 hours 51 minutes 24 seconds.
A final go/no-go poll is given for docking.
T-plus 18 hours 56 minutes and 24 seconds.
The Dragon Capsule arrives at Waypoint two,
which is only 20 meters away
and gets placed into a short hold.
T-plus 19 hours one minute and 24 seconds.
The Dragon capsule departs Waypoint Two
and goes in for the docking.
T-plus 19 hours six minutes and 25 seconds.
A big sigh of relief from the crew and Mission Control.
The Dragon Capsule is docked
and the crew has officially arrived
at the International Space Station!
So there you have it!
Nice and easy, huh?
Well, you can actually try the docking yourself
by going to iss-sim.spacex.com
and see if you can do the final docking maneuvers yourself.
It's no Kerbal Space Program, but it's still really fun.
Let me know if you liked this video
and if you want me to do another one
for reentry and landing
and if you want me to do a similar video
when crew rides Boeing's Starliner for the first time, too.
Be sure and let me know if you have any other questions
in the comments below and be sure and stick around
because I have tons more videos coming out
that will help you understand all this cool stuff
as we enter a new era of human spaceflight.
Now, if you're watching this before DM-2,
be sure and watch my live stream
because I will be there at the Kennedy Space Center,
only about five kilometers away from the launch.
I'll be there pretty much all day
answering your guys' questions.
Now, if you're watching this video after DM-2,
just tune in to any launch, upcoming launch.
I try to stream all of them,
or at least as many as I can.
So it's a really fun way to interact
and get your questions answered live
and it's just kinda fun to hang out with everyone.
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of these upcoming launches.
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Thanks everybody, that's gonna do it for me.
I'm Tim Dodd, the Everyday Astronaut,
bringing space down to Earth for everyday people.
(hypnotic back EDM music)