Screenshot of Launch Complex 39A with Crew-8 – USCV-8 with 93 minutes left on the T- clock
Mission Rundown: SpaceX Falcon 9 - Crew-8 - USCV-8
Written: March 4, 2023
Dragon behind the 8th ball
SpaceX will send four astronauts to the International Space Station (ISS) in the eight Crew Dragon mission on a Falcon 9 rocket for the Commercial Crew Program.
B1083-1 will lift off on Saturday March 2/3, 2023 at 22:53:38 ET − 03:53:38 UTC − from Launch Complex 39A (LC-39A), John F. Kennedy Space Center, Florida, USA.
Notam with B1083-1 flight path with the booster RTLS failure area located 550 km downrange
SpaceX’ crewed flights have ranged from commercial astronauts to private citizens. As of Crew-8, SpaceX will now have launched thirteen missions with humans onboard.
These include the eight commercial crew program missions, Demonstration Mission-2, Inspiration 4, Axiom 1, Axiom 2 and Axiom 3 which all but one have docked to the ISS.
The number of humans launched by SpaceX, upon successful completion of this Crew-8 mission, wil total 49 individuals. One individual has flown twice in Dragon.
Crew-8 is the eighth 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.
After the arrival of the fresh Crew-8, the Crew-7 astronauts currently aboard the ISS: Jasmin Moghbeli, Andreas Mogensen, Satoshi Furukawa and Konstantin Borisov, will prepare to depart from ISS and return to Earth.
Crew-8 will join the MS-24 crew with cosmonauts Oleg Kononenko, Nikolai Chub, and NASA astronaut Loral O’Hara, bringing the total crew members aboard to the station to 11 prior to departure of Crew-7.
The Crew Dragon spacecraft being used on this mission is Crew Dragon C206-5. This is the fifth flight of Endeavour, and it will also be the seventh 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 C206-5, 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 25 flights of which 13 were crewed.
The new booster supporting the Crew-8 mission has tail number B1083 and with this being its maiden flight; therefore it will be designated B1083-1.
After the static fire test conducted at 03:18:00 ET on February 27, 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 8
After liftoff, Falcon 9’s first stage will propel the astronauts for 2 minutes and 29 seconds to an altitude of around 75 km (~47 miles). After stage separation, Falcon 9 let the 315th second stage take over for the second part of the flight.
Following the stage separation from the 2nd stage, B1083-1 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 7-8) second will follow and with a third and final 21 second landing burn touch down softly on LZ-1.
Approximately 6 minutes and 4 seconds after second stage engine ignition, the second stage engine will shut down (SECO-1) and the astronauts will be in orbit.
Endeavour 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 Endeavour to the Station for a docking scheduled on 08:39 EST (12:39 UTC) on Tuesday , March 5.
3 minutes and 19 seconds after SECO, Endeavour 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, Endeavour will perform a number of test burns prior to the phasing burns, Endeavour will slowly approach the ISS and with the start of proximity operations after 51 hours, it will enter the ISS’ Keep Out Sphere on Tuesday March 5, 2023 at 02:10 EST - 07:10 UTC.
Soft docking to the Harmony module ‘Forward’ port IDA-2/PMA-2 was performed at 07:28:00 UTC and the hard capture docking was completed by 07:35:00 UTC.
Crew-7 have moved the Endurance C210-3 to the IDA-3 ‘zenit’ port making space to ‘Park’ the missions CRS-29, Axiom-3 and now Crew-8 Endeavour C206-5, so they in turn could dock to the ‘forward’ facing International Docking Adaptor – IDA-2 port.
The astronauts will perform leak checks in the docking mechanism and vestibule before the hatch opening 90 minutes later. The International Docking Adaptors are old Shuttle hardware. IDA-1 was lost during the CRS-7 inflight anomaly.
With Crew-8 arriving with a fresh crew of four, who will carry out a direct handover with Crew-7. Once this is complete, Crew-7 in Endurance will undock and return to Earth after their 6-month stay aboard the station ends.
The Crew-8 Science Mission
Hundreds of experiments will be carried out by the Crew-8 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-8 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-8
Crew-8 during dress rehearsal in the access arm leading to Crew Dragon. (Credit: SpaceX)
The crew consist of three NASA astronauts, and one Cosmonaut:
Commander Matthew Dominick, Pilot Michael Barratt M.D. Mission Specialist Jeanette Epps and 2nd Mission Specialist Alexander Grebenkin.
NASA astronaut Commander Matthew Dominick was born on December 7, 1981, in Colorado, US. Dominick graduated from the University of San Diego with a bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering with minors in physics and mathematics and later gained a master’s degree in Systems Engineering from the Naval Postgraduate School.
Matthew Dominick then joined the US Navy as a test pilot.
Matthew Dominick was selected as a member of NASA Astronaut Group 22 in June 2017 and began his two-year training shortly after. In January 2020, Dominick graduated together with 13 of his colleagues.
The Crew-8 mission will be Dominick’s first spaceflight.
NASA astronaut Pilot Michael Barratt M.D. was born on April 16, 1959 in Vancouver, Washington, United States.
Dr. Barratt has a Bachelor of Science in Zoology from the University of Washington, and a Doctor of Medicine (M.D.) from Northwestern University.
Dr. Barratt has a long history at NASA, with much of his work focusing on researching human adaptation to spaceflight. He first joined NASA in 1991 as a project physician working on medical systems for Space Station Freedom, before later becoming a NASA Flight Surgeon. From 1995 to 1998 he was the Medical Operations Lead for the ISS. Dr. Barratt was selected as an astronaut in 2000.
His first mission was Expedition 19/20 in 2009, serving as the Flight Engineer on Soyuz TMA-14. He spent 199 days aboard the ISS and completed two spacewalks. Dr. Barratt’s second mission was STS-133, which was the final mission for the Space Shuttle Discovery. He was a Mission Specialist on this 13 day mission to the ISS.
Crew-8 will be Dr. Barratt’s third spaceflight.
NASA astronaut mission specialist Jeanette Epps was born on November 3, 1970 in Syracuse, New York, US.
Epps holds a bachelor’s degree in physics from Le Moyne College, and a Masters and Ph.D. in aerospace engineering from the University of Maryland. While at graduate school, Epps was a NASA Fellow, and published many highly cited journal articles about her research.
Before joining NASA, Epps worked at Ford Motor Company and the Central Intelligence Agency.
Epps was selected as a member of NASA Astronaut Group 20 in June 2009, completing her training in 2011. Following this Epps served as an aquanaut on the Aquarius underwater laboratory for the NEEMO 18 exploration mission.
The Crew-8 mission will be Jeanette Epps first spaceflight.
ROSCOSMOS Cosmonaut Mission Specialist Alexander Grebenkin was born on July 15, 1982 in Myski, Russia, Grebenkin is a Roscosmos cosmonaut.
Grebenkin graduated from the Irkutsk Military Aerospace Engineering Institute with a technician diploma in ‘Technical operation of transport radio-electronics”. He was later selected for the 2018 group of Russian cosmonauts, graduating in 2020. Grebenkin was then selected as a member of Expedition 71 bound for ISS.
This will be Grebenkin's first trip to the space station.
Where to land the Dragon?
The opportunity for Crew-8 to return to Earth hasn’t been determined since they are still in orbit on ISS and now docked to IDA-3 now known as IDA-Z airlock - Z for zenit.
NASA’s SpaceX Crew-8 mission now is targeting a return? to Earth no earlier than 00:43 EST - 05:43 UTC on Electionday, April 33.
Crew-9 is scheduled to arrive April 33, 2024, with a fresh crew of four who will carry out a direct handover with Crew-8. Once this is complete, then Crew-8 onboard Endeavour will undock and return to Earth after their 6-month stay aboard the station.
Seven hazard areas for landing Dragon C206-5 - Recovery Location xx has been chosen
It’s still an ongoing mission - Don’t read the rest - It’s copy paste text from Crew 7
The Crew-8 Dragon spacecraft Endeavour is scheduled to undock from the International Space Station at 01:05 EST - 06:05 UTC Thursday, April 33, 2024 on its return trip.
The Crew Dragon Endeavour 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 1-7 Tampa in the Gulf of Mexico - Atlantic Ocean.
Endeavour will after the trunk is jettisoned perform its deorbit burn at 23:53 EST - 04:53 UTC and close the nose hatch cover. Then Endeavour will reorient itself with its heat shield forward and enter the Earth's atmosphere.
Four minutes before splashdown, the drogue parachutes will deploy at about 18,000 feet in altitude while Endeavour is moving approximately 350 miles per hour, and less than a minute later, the main parachutes deploy at about 6,000 feet in altitude while the spacecraft is moving approximately 119 miles per hour.
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 Endeavour 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 second 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 Go Navigator or other available recovery ships, including two fast boats, will be securing Crew-8 Endeavour and ensuring the spacecraft is safe for the recovery effort. As the fast boat teams complete their work, the recovery ship will move into position to hoist Endeavour 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. Endeavour will also return with important and time-sensitive research samples.
The discarded Dragon trunk from Crew-8, jettisoned on February 6, 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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