Photo of Launch Complex 39A with Crew-7 – USCV-7 seen here at sunset 36 hours before launch
Mission Rundown: SpaceX Falcon 9 - Crew-7 - USCV-7
Written: August 26, 2023 Edit: March 12, 2024
Seventh Son of the Dragon
SpaceX will send four astronauts to the International Space Station (ISS) in the seventh Crew Dragon mission on a Falcon 9 rocket for the Commercial Crew Program.
B1081-1 will lift off on Friday August 26, 2023 at 03:27:27 EDT − 07:27:27 UTC − from Launch Complex 39A (LC-39A), Kennedy Space Center, Florida, USA.
Notam with B1081-1 flight path with the boosters RTLS failure area located 550 km downrange
SpaceX’ crewed flights have ranged from commercial astronauts to private citizens. As of Crew-7, SpaceX will now have launched eleven missions with humans onboard.
These include the seven commercial crew program missions, Demonstration Mission-2, Inspiration 4, Axiom 1 and Axiom 2 which all but one have docked to the ISS.
The number of humans launched by SpaceX, upon successful completion of this Crew-7 mission, wil total 42 individuals.
Crew-7 is the seventh regular crew rotation mission to the ISS to launch on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket. The four astronauts will stay on ISS for about six months.
Only a few days after the arrival of the fresh Crew-7, the Crew-6 astronauts currently aboard the ISS: Stephen Bowen, Warren “Woody” Hoburg, Andrey Fedyaev and Sultan Alneyadi, will prepare to depart from ISS and return to Earth.
Crew-7 will join the extended duration MS-23 crew with cosmonauts Sergey Prokopyev, Dmitry Petelin, and NASA astronaut Francisco Rubio, bringing the total crew members aboard to the station to 11 prior to departure of Crew-6.
The Crew Dragon spacecraft being used on this mission is Crew Dragon C210-3. This is the third flight of Endurance, and it will also be the sixth time since DM-2 in May 2020 that SpaceX uses a new Falcon 9 rocket.
SpaceX plans no more Crew Dragon will be built, though Cargo Dragons will continue to be built. Endurance C210-3, Endeavour C206-4, Freedom C212-2, and Resilience C207-2 will be refurbished and reflown in turn as part of the Crew Dragon fleet.
Like the Space Shuttle before it, Crew Dragon 2 is reusable – the first reusable human capsule launch and reentry system in the world. Mercury, Gemini and Apollo were all built to be used one time and are now museum pieces on display.
Since the maiden flight of DM-1, Dragon 2 has had 22 flights of which 11 were crewed.
The new booster supporting the Crew-7 mission has tail number B1081 and with this being its maiden flight; therefore it will be designated B1081-1.
After the final static fire test at 08:18:48 EDT on August 22, 2023 on Pad 39A and after the final check outs, the Falcon 9 rocket will be made ready for launch.
Launching Falcon 9 with Crew 7
After liftoff, Falcon 9’s first stage will propel the astronauts for 2 minutes and 20 seconds to an altitude of around 75 km (~47 miles). After stage separation, Falcon 9’s second stage takes over for the second part of the flight.
Following the stage separation from the 2nd stage, B1081-1 will conduct a 50 second long ‘Boost Back Burn’ in order to do a ‘return to launch site’ - RTLS maneuver where the forward speed will be reduced from 7000 km/h plus to minus 1000 km/h.
The second atmosphere re-entry burn lasting 11 (was 3-4) second will follow and with a third and final 21 second landing burn touch down softly on LZ-1.
Approximately 6 minutes and 7 seconds after second stage engine ignition, the second stage engine will shut down (SECO-1) and the astronauts will be in orbit.
Endurance is inserted into an initial 199 x 201 km parking orbit, after which a series of phasing and rendezvous burns will take place to bring the spacecraft Endurance to the Station for a docking scheduled on 08:39 EDT (12:39 UTC) on Sunday, August 27.
3 minutes and 19 seconds after SECO, Endurance will separate from the second stage and open up its nose cone in order to expose the 4 forward facing Draco thrusters.
Once the forward Draco thrusters are exposed, Endurance will perform a number of test burns prior to the phasing burns, Endurance will slowly approach the ISS and with the start of proximity operations after 29 hours, it will enter the ISS’ Keep Out Sphere on Sunday August 27, 2023 at 08:17 EDT - 12:17 UTC.
Soft docking to the Harmony module ‘Forward’ International Docking Adaptor – IDA-2 port was performed at 13:16:30 UTC. Hard capture was completed by 13:27:05 UTC.
Crew-6 in Endeavour C206-4 was moved after Crew-5’s departure and has been docked to the ‘Zenit’ port IDA-3/PMA-3 to make room for the arrival of CRS 27, Axiom-2, CRS 28 and now Crew-7 in C210-3 Endurance.
The astronauts will perform leak checks in the docking mechanism and vestibule before the hatch opening 90 minutes later. The two International Docking Adaptors were old Shuttle hardware. IDA-1 was lost during the CRS-7 inflight anomaly.
With Crew-7 arriving with a fresh crew of four, who will carry out a direct handover with Crew-6. Once this is complete, Crew-6 on Endeavour will undock and return to Earth after their 6-month stay aboard the station.
The Crew-7 Science Mission
Hundreds of experiments will be carried out by the Crew-7 astronauts on board the ISS, ranging from biomedical experiments to material science experiments to technology and artificial intelligence testing. This is a handful of the experiments that will be done during the Crew-7 mission.
During their time on the orbiting international laboratory, the crew will conduct over 200 science experiments and technology demonstrations in areas such as life and physical sciences to advanced materials, technology development, in-space production applications, and even student-led research.
The only thing I didn’t find among the sources was a cargo manifest of, what I presume would be, crew supplies and science experiments in the fragile end.
The Dragon Crew-7
Crew-7 during dress rehearsal in the access arm leading to Crew Dragon. (Credit: SpaceX)
The crew comes from four countries and consist of a NASA astronaut, a Cosmonaut, a JAXA astronaut and a ESA astronaut from Denmark:
NASA astronaut Commander Jasmin Moghbeli became a NASA astronaut in 2017.
Moghbeli is from Baldwin, New York, and earned a bachelor’s degree in aerospace engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and a master’s degree in aerospace engineering from the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, California. She is also a mother of twin girls.
As an AH-1W Super Cobra pilot and Marine Corps test pilot, she has flown more than 150 missions accruing 2,000 hours of flight time in more than 25 different aircraft.
She also graduated with honors from the U.S. Naval Test Pilot School in Patuxent River, Maryland. At the time of her selection as an astronaut, Moghbeli was testing H-1 helicopters and serving as the quality assurance and avionics officer for VMX-1.
This will be Moghbeli’s first trip to the space station.
ESA astronaut Pilot Andreas Mogensen was born in Copenhagen, Denmark, and graduated with an international baccalaureate from the Copenhagen International School, a master’s degree in aeronautical engineering from Imperial College London, and a doctorate in aerospace engineering from the University of Texas at Austin.
In 2015, Mogensen became the first Danish person to go to space and currently is serving as the European astronaut liaison officer to NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston, and preparing for a lunar mission as a geology mission specialist.
This will be Mogensen’s second trip to the space station as a veteran of the ESA 10-day Iriss mission in 2015, for which he served as a flight engineer. Mogensen was the flight engineer on Soyuz TMA-18M spacecraft during launch and Soyuz TMA-16M during the return flight. Mogensen has logged 9 days, 20 hours, and 9 minutes in space.
JAXA astronaut mission specialist Satoshi Furukawa born April 4, 1964 in Yokohama, Kanagawa, Japan. He is married and has two children.
Furakawa graduated from Eiko high school, Kamakura, in 1983; he received a Doctor of Medicine degree from the University of Tokyo in 1989, and a Doctor of Philosophy degree in Medical Science from the same in 2000.
In February 1999, Furukawa was selected by the National Space Development Agency of Japan (NASDA later became JAXA) as one of three Japanese astronaut candidates for the International Space Station (ISS). He started the ISS Astronaut Basic Training program in April 1999 and was certified as an astronaut in January 2001.
In May 2004, he completed Soyuz-TMA Flight Engineer-1 training at the Yuri Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Center (GCTC), Star City, Russia.
Furukawa arrived at the Johnson Space Center in June 2004. In February 2006 he completed NASA Astronaut Candidate Training that included scientific and technical briefings, intensive instruction in Shuttle and International Space Station systems.
Completion of this initial training qualified him for various technical assignments within the NASA Astronaut Office and for flight assignment as a mission specialist on Space Shuttle missions. He helped support the final space shuttle mission, STS-135.
Furukawa spent 165 days aboard the orbiting laboratory ISS in 2011 as a flight engineer with Expeditions 28 and 29.
The Soyuz TMA-02M carrying Furukawa, cosmonaut Sergey Volkov and NASA astronaut Michael Fossum launched from the Baikonur Cosmodrome on 7 June 2011. They undocked from the ISS at 23:00 UTC on 21 November 2011. The spacecraft soft-landed safely— on its side—in Kazakhstan at 02:26 UTC on 22 November.
This will be Furukawa’s second trip to the space station.
ROSCOSMOS Cosmonaut Konstantin Borisov was born August 14, 1984 in Smolensk. He is married with no children as yet.
Borisov received a Bachelor of Economics from the Russian Academy of Economics on June 27, 2007. From September 27, 2006 to December 3, 2007, he studied at Warwick University, Coventry, UK, where he received his Master of Science in "Operations Research and Systems Analysis".
In June 2018, he completed his studies at the MAI on the Master Program Life Support Systems for Aircraft (2016-2018), with the qualification "Master" in the direction of Aircraft Building.
Borisov was selected as a cosmonaut in 2018, and he passed the state exam in December 2020 to be qualified for spaceflight assignments.
Borisov has been assigned to the SpaceX Crew-7 mission, where he will serve as a Flight Engineer on Expedition 69/70 and is expected to stay for 6 months.
This will be Borisov’s first trip to the space station.
Where to land the Dragon?
The opportunity for Crew-7 to return to Earth has been determined March 8, 2024. They are in orbit on ISS and docked to IDA-3 now known as IDA-Z airlock - Z for ‘Zenit’.
NASA’s SpaceX Crew-7 mission now is targeting a return to Earth no earlier than 05:47 EDT - 09:47 UTC on Tuesday March 12, 2024.
Seven hazard areas for landing Dragon C210-3 - Recovery Location 1 Pensacola has been chosen
Crew-8 arrived March 6, 2024, with a fresh crew of four who will carry out a direct handover with Crew-7. Once this is complete, then Crew-7 on Endurance will be ready to undock and return to Earth after their 6-month stay aboard the station.
The Crew-7 Dragon spacecraft Endurance is scheduled to undock from the International Space Station at 11:20 EDT - 15:20 UTC Thursday, March 11, 2024 on its return trip.
The Crew Dragon Endurance will aim for a splashdown at one of seven targeted landing zones in the Atlantic Ocean or Gulf of Mexico off the coast of Florida. Recovery is fixed at the splashdown zone LZ-1 Pensacola in the Gulf of Mexico.
Endurance will − after trunk jettison − perform its deorbit burn at 04:56 EDT − 08:56 UTC and close the nose hatch cover. Then Endurance will reorient itself with its heat shield forward and enter the Earth's atmosphere.
The drogue parachutes will deploy four minutes before splashdown at about ~18,000 feet − 5,5 Km in altitude while Freedom is moving ~350 miles per hour − 563 Km/h, and less than a minute later, the main parachutes deploy at ~6,000 feet − 1,8 Km in altitude while the spacecraft is moving ~119 miles per hour − 191 Km/h.
The infrared camera view in the ‘Splashdown’ video time 1:16:47 at ‘frame four’ showed a clock in the top right corner displaying 03/12/24 - 09:45:00.060 UTC. That is useful in calculating the actual splashdown time to the second.
Actual splashdown time on ‘Splashdown’ video time was 1:19:25 equal to 09:47:38 UTC which was found by adding 2 minutes 38 seconds to the infrared camera clock.
For normal crew rescue and recovery operations, the NASA and SpaceX teams select two primary splashdown locations from the seven possible locations about two weeks prior to return, with additional decision milestones taking place prior to crew boarding the spacecraft, during free flight, and before Endurance performs a deorbit burn.
NASA and SpaceX closely coordinated with the U.S. Coast Guard to establish a 10x10 nautical-mile safety zone around the expected splashdown location to ensure safety for the public and for those involved in the recovery operations, as well as the crew aboard the returning spacecraft.
The return will mark the end of the seventh crew rotation mission to the International Space Station of the Crew Dragon spacecraft developed in partnership between NASA and SpaceX as a part of the agency’s Commercial Crew Program.
Teams on the recovery ship Megan, including two fast boats, will be securing Crew-7 Endurance and ensuring the spacecraft is safe for the recovery effort. As the fast boat teams complete their work, Megan will move into position to hoist Endurance onto the main deck of the ship with the astronauts inside.
Once on the main deck, the crew will be taken out of the spacecraft and receive medical checks before a helicopter ride to Pensacola to board a plane for Houston. Endurance will also return with important and time-sensitive research samples.
Graphic of a redrawn DM-2 by G. de Chiara with length measurement inserted by me
It’s was an ongoing mission - Don’t read the rest - It’s copy paste text from Crew 6
The discarded Dragon trunk from Crew-7, jettisoned on March 12, 2024 has now been cataloged in a 210 x 394 km x 51.3 deg orbit. 15 days later it reentered at 03:48 UTC November 21 (8:48 pm PDT Saturday evening) over the Vancouver/Calgary area.
The low apogee of 210 km in this orbit is a contributing factor in deorbiting the Dragon trunk section so fast. It is after all a BIG barrel or dustbin, so maybe it should be rebuilt as a space debris hunter/gatherer collecting space junk.
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