SpaceX Crew-2 was the second operational flight of a Crew Dragon spacecraft, and the third overall crewed orbital flight of the Commercial Crew Program. The mission was launched on 23 April 2021 at 09:49:02 UTC, and docked to the International Space Station on 24 April at 09:08 UTC. SpaceX Crew-2 used the same capsule as Crew Dragon Demo-2 ''(

Endeavour Endeavour or endeavor may refer to: People Fictional characters * Endeavour Morse, central character of the ''Inspector Morse'' novels by Colin Dexter * Endeavor, the hero name for the character Enji Todoroki from the anime series ''My Hero A ...

)'' and launched on the same Falcon 9 booster as SpaceX Crew-1 (B1061.1). With its return to Earth the evening of 9 November 2021, the mission set a record for the longest spaceflight by a U.S. crewed spacecraft, 199 days.

Crew

On 28 July 2020,

JAXA The is the Japanese national air and space agency. Through the merger of three previously independent organizations, JAXA was formed on 1 October 2003. JAXA is responsible for research, technology development and launch of satellites into orb ...

, ESA and NASA confirmed their

astronaut An astronaut (from the Ancient Greek (), meaning 'star', and (), meaning 'sailor') is a person trained, equipped, and deployed by a human spaceflight program to serve as a commander or crew member aboard a spacecraft. Although generally r ...

assignments aboard this mission. German astronaut

Matthias Maurer Matthias Josef Maurer (born 18 March 1970) is a German European Space Agency astronaut and Materials scientist, who was selected in 2015 to take part in space training. Biography Maurer graduated from in Sankt Wendel, Saarland, in 1989.) He ...

was the backup for Pesquet, while Japanese astronaut Satoshi Furukawa trained as backup to Hoshide.

Mission

The second SpaceX operational mission in the Commercial Crew Program launched on 23 April 2021. The Crew Dragon ''Endeavour'' (C206), docked to the International Docking Adapter (IDA) on the ''Harmony'' module at its forward port. This mission was the first with astronauts on board with a previously used booster launch vehicle. All crew members were veteran astronauts, though this was Megan McArthur's first visit to the ISS (as her first spaceflight was STS-125, a mission to the Hubble Space Telescope). McArthur used the same seat on the

SpaceX Space Exploration Technologies Corp. (SpaceX) is an American spacecraft manufacturer, launcher, and a satellite communications corporation headquartered in Hawthorne, California. It was founded in 2002 by Elon Musk with the stated goal of ...

Crew Dragon ''

'' in this mission which her husband, Bob Behnken, used on the Demo-2 mission.

Akihiko Hoshide is a Japanese engineer, JAXA astronaut, and former Commander of the International Space Station. On August 30, 2012, Hoshide became the third Japanese astronaut to walk in space. Early life and education He was born in 1968 in Tokyo, Japan. H ...

served as the second Japanese ISS commander during his stay. It was the second mission by Thomas Pesquet to the International Space Station and was named ''Alpha'', after

Alpha Centauri Alpha Centauri ( Latinized from α Centauri and often abbreviated Alpha Cen or α Cen) is a triple star system in the constellation of Centaurus. It consists of 3 stars: Alpha Centauri A (officially Rigil Kentaurus), Alpha Centaur ...

, the closest star system to Earth. As preparation for the launch of Starliner, the Crew Dragon Endeavour docked to ISS at ''Harmony'' forward port for its Crew-2 mission was undocked at 10:45 UTC and relocated to ''Harmony'' zenith port on 21 July 2021, at 11:36 UTC. With CRS-23, ( C208) and

Inspiration4 Inspiration4 (stylized as Inspirati④n) was a 2021 human spaceflight operated by SpaceX on behalf of Shift4 Payments CEO Jared Isaacman. The mission launched the Crew Dragon ''Resilience'' on 16 September 2021 at 00:02:56 UTC from Kennedy Sp ...

('' Resilience''), three Dragon spacecraft were in space at the same time, from 16 to 18 September 2021 (UTC).

Timeline

File:Crew-2 On Pad.jpg, NASA's SpaceX Crew-2 mission undergoing preflight operations File:SpaceX Crew-2 Launch (NHQ202104230038).jpg, Falcon 9 and ''Endeavour'' launch from LC-39A, at the Kennedy Space Center, with the SpaceX Crew-2 crew members aboard, on Friday, April 23rd, 2021 File:SpaceX Crew-2 Commercial Crew Poster.png, SpaceX Crew-2 promotional poster

Wake-up calls

NASA began a tradition of playing music to astronauts during the

Gemini program Project Gemini () was NASA's second human spaceflight program. Conducted between projects Mercury and Apollo, Gemini started in 1961 and concluded in 1966. The Gemini spacecraft carried a two-astronaut crew. Ten Gemini crews and 16 individual ...

, and first used music to wake up a flight crew during

Apollo 15 Apollo 15 (July 26August 7, 1971) was the ninth crewed mission in the United States' Apollo program and the fourth to Moon landing, land on the Moon. It was the first List of Apollo missions#Alphabetical mission types, J mission, with a ...

. Each track is specially chosen, often by the astronauts' families, and usually has a special meaning to an individual member of the crew, or is applicable to their daily activities.

Return

Due to weather delays and a minor health problem with one of the SpaceX Crew-3 crew, NASA decided to bring home the Crew-2 astronauts from the ISS before launching Crew-3, thus being the first Crew Dragon indirect handover of space station crews. The Crew Dragon undocked from the station at 19:05 UTC on 8 November 2021 and splashed down off the coast of Florida at 03:33 UTC on 9 November 2021. One of four parachutes deployed slower than the others.

Notes

References

{{Orbital launches in 2021 SpaceX Dragon 2 Spacecraft launched in 2021 SpaceX payloads contracted by NASA SpaceX human spaceflights 2021 in the United States Fully civilian crewed orbital spaceflights Spacecraft which reentered in 2021