Dragon astronauts: Who are they?
Recently, popular entrepreneur and billionaire Elon Musk’s aerospace manufacturing company called SpaceX has delivered an astronaut crew to the International Space Station (ISS) who are now being called Dragon astronauts.
Dragon astronauts derived their name from the rocket capsule in which they travelled. It is known as the Dragon capsule or Freedom. The Dragon astronauts are also known as Crew-4 astronauts (as it is the fourth human crew to have sent by SpaceX to the ISS).
Crew-4 astronauts
The team comprises of NASA’s Kjell Lindgren, Bob Hines and Jessica Watkins and European Space Agency’s (ESA) Samantha Cristoforetti.
The Dragon astronauts have currently stationed themselves on ISS and will regard it as their home for the next few months. They will conduct a full-duration mission (during which they will conduct an extensive study of the space ecosystem) on the ISS that will take approximately six months on board.
While Kjell N. Lindgren has been a seasoned astronaut with NASA for over a decade and has been an integral part of NASA’s Astronaut Group, he has previously set foot on the ISS in the year 2015, as part of NASA’s Expedition 44/45. On the other hand, for Bob Hines, an ex-American fighter pilot, this is his first ever mission to the space.
As for Jessica Andrea Watkins, an astronaut and former geologist, this Dragon mission to the ISS is her first space flight that also made her the first black woman to have set foot on the ISS. In contrast, her colleague, Italian air force pilot and astronaut Samantha Cristoforetti has already been a three-time space visitor, thanks to Expedition 42 (42nd expedition to ISS that happened in 2014-15), Expedition 43 (43rd expedition to ISS that happened in mid-2015) and Soyuz TMA-15A expedition (2009 ISS mission). She is now considered to be the senior-most among all the Dragon astronauts.
All about the Dragon capsule
The Dragon capsule is the first ever private spacecraft to have taken humans to the International Space Station. Also known as Dragon 1 or Cargo Dragon (as it was primarily manufactured to transport cargo to and from ISS), it is the only spacecraft that has the capacity of loading and unloading cargo on ISS. It is also the first ever reusable cargo spacecraft and has a capacity of flying up to seven passengers on board, from the earth’s orbit to the outer space. Although, it was launched in 2020, it only recently started flying NASA as well as other commercial astronauts to and from ISS. At present, the Dragon capsule has become immensely popular as it emerged as the fastest ever crewed mission to the ISS.