How is the SpaceX Crew Dragon?

If you have heard of Elon Musk and you like space travel, then you will have heard of SpaceX, a mega aerospace project that is being the great protagonist of this kind of travel by the hand of the founder of Tesla. With this, for its part, what was called ‘Crew Dragon’ was also born, the capsule for the mission that is carried out from the Dragon 2 ship. But, what is it and what does it consist of?

How is the SpaceX Crew Dragon

SpaceX has a historic project with ‘Crew Dragon’

In 2020, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), together with SpaceX , the company of tycoon Elon Musk, launched a ship into space that was destined for the International Space Station. In his case, it was with the ship ‘Crew Dragon’, which marked a historical milestone with which he sought to lead the beginning of commercial space travel.

Still, we speak of Space X as the American aerospace transportation company founded by Tesla (and other) tycoon Elon Musk. Until the arrival of the ‘Crew Dragon’, the most important SpaceX project until then turned out to be the Falcon Heavy rocket, which had a power and a load capacity greater than that of the Saturn V, a NASA rocket launched last time in 1973 that it was part of the Apollo missions to the moon.

In those, SpaceX wants to take its new plan and invention to another level . And nothing better than doing it with the super idea of the ‘Crew Dragon’, which is reflected as the most important of the company’s Dragon 2 spacecraft. However; What is this project like and what is it about? What is particular about it and why is it spoken of as a historical fact?

What is it about

Let’s start from the basis that it is a spaceship, from SpaceX itself, which aims to go into orbit. And it is that, after years of development, the American company certified what is its first capsule that takes humans into space. This, as such, is known as ‘Crew Dragon’.

In fact, it can take up to 4 people into space . It is powered by the Falcon 9 reusable rocket, a rocket that has been shown to be safe and capable of returning to earth and landing without a scratch, something that no matter how many times we see it, it does not get old.

De qué trata Crew Dragon SpaceX

The fact is that ‘Crew Dragon’ is a space capsule that is totally different from what we have seen so far. Its design is totally clean and nothing to do with the panels with millions of buttons that other ships have.

In 2021, and after some previous tests, NASA launched and reused both the ship and the rocket, a big step for SpaceX. The capsule used in that mission is Endeavour, the same one used in the Demo-2 mission, and the well-known Falcon 9 from the Crew-1 mission. Similarly, it is the first time that an ESA astronaut has traveled aboard a SpaceX spacecraft. The intention is to reuse it for the following missions and thus reduce costs.

A modern and futuristic design

Manned by space tourists, SpaceX revealed that its ‘Crew Dragon’ is made up of a transparent dome through which crew members can enjoy incredible space views during their journeys. As evidenced in the images of the following video, its design is modern and with a futuristic touch that makes it look like a science fiction movie from the 90s.

Fully autonomous , it is equipped with an emergency abort system designed to eject astronauts to safety if something goes wrong. In addition, it has a parachute system to land the spacecraft safely in the unlikely event that one of the four main parachutes fails.

This is the final big step before NASA’s commercial crew program certifies the capsule as the vehicle for long-duration operational space station missions. This certification will allow the continuation of the technological research that lays the foundations for the future exploration of the Moon and Mars from the Artemisa program, scheduled for 2024.