In a few days SpaceX will be launching astronauts to the International Space Station aboard their
Crew Dragon capsule. They did this once before in May 2020 and they're about to do it again so
today let's talk about seven differences between the upcoming Crew-1 mission and the DM-2 mission
Hey guys Tory here from Overlook Horizon welcome back to two minute Tuesday which
is where we talk about a space or science topic briefly for about two minutes or as
close as I can get to it every Tuesday so be sure to subscribe so you don't miss it.
Now it's gonna take a miracle to get this one in in two minutes but I thought it was important
to cover the differences between these two missions so just for the fun of it let's throw
two minutes on the clock and let's get to today's two minute Tuesday.
SpaceX has shown the world that its Crew Dragon capsule can safely
carry humans now they're gonna make it routine but even though the first
mission was a huge success there are a few things that will be changing.
Number one: four astronauts instead of two.
The first flight back in May was a demonstration mission designed to test out the vehicle and
procedures and ensure everything was in working order the mission was intentionally limited to
just two astronauts Bob Behnken and Doug Hurley but the upcoming Crew-1 mission is
now considered an operational mission and will see the full slate of four astronauts.
They are: Commander Michael Hopkins
Pilot Victor Glover
and mission specialists Shannon Walker and Soichi Noguchi who's from the Japanese space agency JAXA.
Now the vehicle technically has room for up to seven seats but NASA will only be
flying a maximum of four astronauts and using the rest of the space for cargo.
Number two: a six-month mission instead of two.
Operational missions to the international space station will be about six months in
duration so this mission won't return to earth until sometime around April of 2021
Number three: switching docking ports.
The Crew Dragon capsule which the astronauts have named Resilience
will dock to the International Space Station but it may not stay attached the whole time
since the ISS may need to accommodate the arrival of Boeing's CST-100 Starliner
which is expected to redo its own orbital test flight in preparation for
its crewed missions hopefully sometime in 2021 to accommodate that the Crew Dragon will use
new autonomous software capabilities that the prior capsule did not have the software will
maneuver the spacecraft away from the forward port and re-dock it to the station's zenith port
this is autonomous but the crew will be on board ready to take over if something goes wrong
Number four: reinforced heat shielding.
After DM-2 landed in August NASA and SpaceX inspected every inch for unexpected damage
and they found some on a critical part of the spacecraft the heat shield
the ablative heat shield deflects and absorbs heat that can reach 3,500 degrees Fahrenheit
while the capsule falls through the upper atmosphere but one of the DM-2 heat shield
tiles suffered a bit more erosion than they wanted to see to resolve this SpaceX reinforced
the heat shield near the connection point between the capsule and the trunk
with stronger materials the new design has been tested in wind tunnels to simulate re-entry
Number five: parachutes deploy earlier
After re-entry the Crew Dragon capsule begins its parachute descent around 18,000 feet above
the ocean but on the DM-2 flight that happened a little closer to the water
than NASA and SpaceX expected it turns out that a filter that vented air into the sensor
measuring the atmospheric pressure had gotten clogged so they've opened it up a little bit
to make it less constrained and allowing them to measure
the barometric pressure more accurately and deploy the parachutes right on time
Number six: solar panels that last six months
Staying docked to the International Space Station might sound easy but
as it sits there the vehicle gets hammered by solar radiation and extreme temperatures
in fact the DM-2 capsule probably would not have survived a full-length six-month mission
its solar panels likely would have degraded significantly after just 110 days in orbit
so on this mission the solar arrays have been improved so they can last up to 210 days
Finally number seven: no more boats!
When the DM-2 capsule splashed down in the Gulf of Mexico a huge number of recreational boaters
immediately swarmed the capsule some passed way too close to the vehicle that is a hazard
for the astronauts and a danger for the boaters themselves since after descending through the
earth's atmosphere the capsule could still have low levels of toxic poisonous gases around the
capsule from the re-entry thrusters to keep any boaters away from the Crew-1 capsule this time
SpaceX and NASA plan to set up a 10-mile no boat perimeter around the splashdown site and
they will have a lot more coast guard boats there to enforce it than they did the last time
So that will wrap up this week's two minute Tuesday - I don't even think we were close -
were we close? no? we weren't even close, but this is important stuff it's an exciting mission.
If you have other burning space questions or topics that you think I should cover drop them
in the comments down below as always be sure to click that like button consider
subscribing and don't forget to join me live T-minus five hours prior to
the Crew-1 launch and I'll see you guys on the next video goodbye.
...still has low levels of monomethyl hydrazine and nitr- and nitrogen.. natura...
nitrogen tetroxide!
NIASFGHDFAGHOAEWOR!
Monomethyl hydrazine
...and NITROGENTETROXIDE! :-)