On my trampoline: the Americans fly to the ISS

a American astronauts launched to the ISS on a rocket Elon musk. For the historical run and the events preceding it, followed “Газета.Ru”.

Historic launch American astronauts on the rocket of billionaire Elon musk to the International space station took place after the second time. The first attempt to launch a Falcon 9 rocket fell on Wednesday –

then the mission was cancelled in less than 17 minutes before launch due to bad weather.

The weather forecast for Saturday’s start, also remained uncertain – experts of the cosmodrome at Cape Canaveral assess the chances of another of the launch abort 50%. All this, coupled with unprecedented attention to run doing the situation around him nervous, admitted NASA.

“Continuous dress rehearsal disrupts the sleep cycles of the astronauts,” he said before the second attempt, the head of NASA Jim Breidenstein.

Doug Hurley and Bob Behnken is an experienced NASA astronauts, who had the experience of two flights into space. They both started out as military pilots of jet aircraft, in space they fly on the American Shuttle.

The public attention brought to every detail of today’s event – from the details of the new suits, which they must endure in orbit to new gestures and rituals that may now be an integral part of the American manned space launches.

Despite the warnings, look at the historic launch came a huge number of spectators.

On the eve of the first attempt on Wednesday, the head of NASA Jim Breidenstein appealed to Americans: “We are asking people to join this run, but to do it from home. We’re asking people to go to Space Kennedy center”.

Despite this, it is reported that many decided to ignore the Council and to the spaceport pulled up to 150 thousand spectators, appeared traditional in such cases, traffic jams. As in Wednesday when the launch was canceled at the launch site promised to come and President Donald trump.

“To the audience few of the masks,” — the newspaper writes Florida Today.

American and Russian experts could not fail to note the dependence of the launch of U.S. missiles from good weather. It is a longstanding feature of American manned (and not only) triggers related to the conditions at the launch site in Florida. From the time the Shuttle launches the rules included the following requirements:

the — the Temperature at the launch site should not fall below 5 degrees Celsius 24 hours before the start.

the — the Temperature must not exceed 37 degrees for 30 minutes after the start of refueling.

the — wind Speed must not exceed 77 km/h for three hours after the start of refueling.

the — On the court and in the trajectory of the launch should not be rain, snow, lightning or hail.

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Meanwhile, experts say the all-weather capability of Russian missiles. “Exactly one year ago on may 27 at the start in bad weather from Plesetsk in our rocket was struck by lightning. However, the launch was successful. Such a strange coincidence — not a rarity in space Affairs,” wrote the head of Roscosmos, Dmitry Rogozin, clearly in defiance of the American partners.

Today’s start can rightfully be considered a major cosmic event, not only this year, but decades, because the start is unique in many ways.

for the First nine years of the launch of American astronauts from American soil on an American rocket. The first in the history of launching people into orbit on a private rocket. Finally, the first in history to launch people to partially return the rocket.

By the way, the last time the US launched its astronauts on a new manned spacecraft four decades ago – at the beginning of the Space Shuttle program.

Himself Elon musk is the most important stage test its reusable rocket to launch which he began in 2012 in cargo version under contracts with NASA.

The American astronauts fly on Russian Soyuz since the mid 1990-ies, a quarter of a century, the United States paid for these flights, about $4 billion, and the interruption of the flow of American money will definitely affect the income of the Russian space Agency, as if the words were not happy about the success of the Mask of the head of state Corporation Dmitry Rogozin.

However, abandoning their own Shuttle, the U.S. began to look for a replacement for the first time decided to rely on the private sector. The idea of leadership, NASA was the fact that private companies are more efficient and bring them in as contractors will reduce costs, spur innovation, and ultimately free up NASA money and resources for the task of deep space.

In 2014, NASA has selected two contractors – the company SpaceX Elon musk and Boeing, who got contracts worth $2.6 billion and $4.2 billion respectively for the creation of manned spacecraft Cockpit and Dragon. The company SpaceX was already in a cargo version of the spacecraft Dragon, and NASA decided to give Boeing more money, as the firm created a vehicle from scratch.

Over the years, the project Crew Dragon took the lead with all flight tests of the ship have been successful, in contrast to the vehicle Cockpit,

who in December 2019 during unmanned test flight was unable to reach the ISS due to the many errors in the software.

It is symbolic that today’s start was from the same pad 39 at the cosmodrome in Florida, where in 2011, launched the latest mission of the us Shuttle Atlantis, which long nine years, put an end to the American manned program. Then it was US dependence from Russia — every time the Americans were forced to buy from Roscosmos space to deliver its astronauts.

The cost of these places each year has grown, reaching today $86 million for a chair – so in Russia today’s start-up is watched particularly closely. With the advent of new private means of delivery into orbit of Russia is deprived of earnings on carrying American astronauts.

Largely thanks to Russia today’s launch of American astronauts – this story is not only about the money and a new way of reaching Americans of the orbit, it is largely political history.

It is the memory about the notorious trampoline, which Rogozin offered to send Americans into space in the midst of confrontation between the US and Russia in 2014, and emphasized the condescending attitude to SpaceX by the head of Roscosmos, accusing the us firm of dumping and unfair play on the market of launch services.

“After analyzing the sanctions against our cosmodrome, I suggest the U.S. deliver its astronauts to the ISS using the trampoline,” he wrote on April 29 2014. Even then, expert, popularizer of cosmonautics Vitaly Yegorov suggested that the current roles and dramatic expression Rogozin towards the West may have a negative impact on future international projects of Russia in the field of space.

“SpaceX and Elon Musk is a pain in one place, it is a pain, it’s the eyesore of the Russian space Agency, said earlier the expert in the field of Astronautics Vadim Lukashevich. – Remember that comment about Rogozin’s trampoline. Actually it’s not just jealousy, it’s a constant headache.”

The other day, speaking about the upcoming launch of the U.S. private spacecraft Crew Dragon to ISS, Rogozin stressed that in 9 years, while Roscosmos has launched all foreign astronauts to the station on Russia lay a huge responsibility, although the state Corporation and earn money. “Therefore, we would be very happy if there was an alternative manned transportation system Americans,” he said.

Before the start of the Crew Dragon Rogozin also made many political statements, which could not fail to notice in the West. So, according to him, the flights of American astronauts on the spacecraft “Soyuz” all these years “held back Russian scientific program on the ISS”.

“We were naive, thinking that we have no science on the ISS, because we are already 15 years old cannot run a specialized module of “Science”, Packed with equipment to conduct our research and experiments on the Russian segment of the ISS. And this is us 9 years prevented the Americans whom we drove for sickly loot “Unions”, straight from the hands we beat, not allowing to run our “Science” on the “Proton”, — said Lukashevich. — Dmitry Rogozin in the same rights — our science on the ISS is not. All the rest of our p��rtery years ago completed construction of its segments, equipping them with the necessary scientific equipment, and has long been engaged in science”.