SpaceX’s dummy pilot will board the Crew Dragon module on its virgin flight to the International Space Station (ISS). Weather permitting, SpaceX is scheduled to blast off from Florida on Saturday morning, March 2. SpaceX has pencilled in a launch window for 7.48am GMT (2.48am EST) at the Kennedy Space Flight Center. The Crew Dragon will launch onboard a reusable Falcon 9 rocket to test SpaceX’s ability to send astronauts into orbit.
Hans Koenigsmann, vice president of Build and Flight Reliability at SpaceX, told reporters the dummy pilot will sit inside the module.
He said: “We’ll measure the responses on the human body, obviously, and measure the environment.
“We want to make sure that everything is perfect for, you know, the safety of the astronauts.”
The dummy Starman 2.0 test pilot is the very same sleek spacesuit design used by SpaceX during the Falcon Heavy rocket test launch in February 2018.
The streamlined black and white design was first unveiled in August 2017.
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On Saturday, Starman will launch towards the ISS for a period of about five days before NASA’s astronauts take the helm.
The manned module will connect with the ISS on March 3 around 11am GMT (6am EST) before undocking on March 8.
About five hours after the module leaves the ISS, it will conduct a deorbit burn and splash down in the Atlantic Ocean.
Astronauts Doug Hurley and Bob Behnken will be the first human pilots to board the Crew Dragon module, likely in July this year.
Fellow astronauts Mike Hopkins and Victor Glover will then take over the subsequent Crew Dragon launch.
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If successful, the SpaceX demo flight will demonstrate the rocket manufacturer’s ability to send astronaut crews into space from American soil.
William Gerstenmaier, the associate administrator of NASA Human Exploration and Operations, said: “This is an absolutely critical first step that we do as we move towards returning the crewed launch capability back here to the US.”
Since the end of the Space Shuttle Programme in 2011, NASA has relied on the Russian Soyuz programme to send astronauts to the ISS.
The space agency’s commercial division, however, has awarded contracts to SpaceX and Boeing to cut the dependency on Russian rockets.
SpaceX and Boeing are now in the test phase of re-establishing a direct line of transport from the US to space.
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This weekend, SpaceX’s Crew Dragon launch will mark the first commercial spacecraft designed specifically for humans to dock with the ISS.
According to Jason Davis of The Planetary Society, this is a “big freaking deal”.
He said: “It’s finally happening. Nearly eight years after the final space shuttle flight, a crew-capable spacecraft is once again ready to launch from Kennedy Space Center, Florida.”
Ahead of the SpaceX launch, NASA’s Stephanie Martin said the main objective of Saturday’s launch is to demonstrate the effectiveness of the Falcon 9 rocket, the Crew Dragon module and all docking and landing operations.
She said: “The flight test will provide valuable data NASA will review as part of the process to certify SpaceX’s crew transportation system is as safe as possible for carrying astronauts to and from the space station.”