Elon Musk space flight company launched four Crew-4 astronauts to NASA’s International Space Station in less than 16 hours on Wednesday (April 27th), the shortest flight time since SpaceX began crew flights in 2020. “This is the fastest launch we’ve ever made,” Steve Stitch, director of NASA’s Commercial Crew Program, told reporters after the launch early Wednesday. “It’s about the same time it takes to get from New York to Singapore, so it’s kind of interesting.” SpaceX launched Crew-4 astronauts into a new Crew Dragon capsule called the Freedom and Falcon 9 rocket at 3:52 a.m. EDT (0752 GMT) from Pad 39A of NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida. The astronauts arrived at the space station later that night, docking at 7:37 p.m. EDT (2337 GMT). Total flight time: 15 hours and 45 minutes. By comparison, NASA’s first SpaceX crew flight, the Demo-2 mission in May 2020, took about 19 hours to reach the station, while NASA’s last Crew-3 flight took almost an entire day. . “I would say he’s a little lucky to be able to do that,” said Jessica Jensen, SpaceX’s vice president of customer operations and integration, adding that any delays could have changed flight times. “You can vary the transmissions by 10 to 20 hours, as you know, in a day or two. It’s not that we changed anything, it’s just the orbital mechanics of where the ISS is and which comes over Florida.” The Crew-4 mission launched three NASA astronauts and a European Space Agency astronaut to the space station to begin a six-month mission. In the Crew Dragon, called Freedom, was the commander of the Crew-4 mission Kjell Lindgren. pilot Bob Hines; Mission Specialist Jessica Watkins (all from NASA). and mission expert Samantha Cristoforetti of the European Space Agency. SpaceX’s shortest flight came just before a spacewalk (an Extravehicular or EVA activity in NASA language) of two Russian cosmonauts outside the space station on Thursday, so docking and installing the Dragon crew was a bonus , said NASA officials. “This short appointment was quite auspicious for us,” Stitch said. “We can get to the station a little faster and we can make the preparations we need as soon as we dock to prepare the dragon for EVA.” While the Crew-4 Dragon flight was SpaceX’s fastest flight to the station, it was never the fastest crew flight. This title is still held by the Russian spacecraft Soyuz, which holds the Guinness World Record for the fastest time at the station with a journey of 3 hours and 3 minutes in October 2020. Email Tariq Malik at [email protected] or follow @tariqjmalik. Follow us @Spacedotcom, Facebook and Instagram.
