For The First Time Ever, Humans Enter SpaceX Crew Dragon In Space

On Sunday, at 5:07 a.m. (Pacific Time), a hatch that had already been shut and locked down ever since 2011. A few moments later, Russian cosmonaut Oleg Kononenko and Canadian astronaut passed through a pressurized mating adapter which is located on the forward end of the ISS and into the Crew Dragon capsule of SpaceX.

This was the first time for humans to enter a space capsule while in space and for anything to pass through the hatch ever since 2011 when the Space Shuttle Atlantis docked to the forward end of the ISS.

Early on Saturday morning (March 2), the Crew Dragon was successfully launched from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida.

It’s a significant milestone for Crew Dragon as along with the Starliner from Boeing; it is one of the two spacecraft chosen by NASA to ferry astronauts into space. Since the final flight in 2011 which was monitored and ran by Soyuz craft from Russia, the U.S. has not launched any astronauts into space.

NASA under the administration of President Trump and leader Jim Bridenstine has put crewed launched as a top priority for the U.S.

During the Crew Dragon’s welcoming ceremony, Anne McClain, a NASA’s astronaut said while onboard the ISS:

For the next few days, the crew will take an inspection around the Crew Dragon and take some pictures of its windows to document the journey. They also need to unload supplies that have traveled with a dummy called Ripley and a plushy named Little Earth Doll, which according to Elon Musk, is a “super high tech zero-g indicator.”

The space ship is scheduled to detach from the International Space Station on Friday morning before heading back to Earth. A test launch with actual astronauts is expected to take place in July.

“Welcome to the new era in space flight,” said McClain while inside the ship.