Crew Dragon ''Endurance'' (Dragon C210) is a

Crew Dragon Dragon 2 is a class of partially reusable spacecraft developed and manufactured by American aerospace manufacturer SpaceX, primarily for flights to the International Space Station (ISS). SpaceX has also launched private missions such as Ins ...

spacecraft manufactured by

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 ...

, built and operated under

NASA The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA ) is an independent agency of the US federal government responsible for the civil space program, aeronautics research, and space research. NASA was established in 1958, succeeding t ...

Commercial Crew Program The Commercial Crew Program (CCP) provides commercially-operated crew transportation service to and from the International Space Station (ISS) under contract to NASA, conducting crew rotations between the expeditions of the International S ...

. On 11 November 2021, it was launched to transport personnel to the

International Space Station The International Space Station (ISS) is the largest modular space station currently in low Earth orbit. It is a multinational collaborative project involving five participating space agencies: NASA (United States), Roscosmos (Russia), JAXA ...

as part of the

SpaceX Crew-3 SpaceX Crew-3 was the fourth operational flight of a Crew Dragon spacecraft, and the third overall crewed orbital flight of the Commercial Crew Program. The mission successfully launched on 11 November 2021 at 02:03:31 UTC to the International ...

mission, which became a part of ISS

Expedition 66 Expedition 66 was the 66th long-duration expedition to the International Space Station. The mission began after the departure of Soyuz MS-18 on 17 October 2021. It was commanded by European Space Agency astronaut Thomas Pesquet, the fourth Euro ...

History

On 7 October 2021, it was announced that Dragon C210 will be called ''Endurance''. Astronaut

Raja Chari Raja Jon Vurputoor Chari (born June 24, 1977) is an American test pilot and NASA astronaut. He is a graduate of the United States Air Force Academy, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and U.S. Naval Test Pilot School, and has over 2,000 flyi ...

said that the name honors the SpaceX and NASA teams that built the spacecraft and trained the astronauts who will fly it. Those workers endured through a pandemic. The name also honors ''

Endurance Endurance (also related to sufferance, resilience, constitution, fortitude, and hardiness) is the ability of an organism to exert itself and remain active for a long period of time, as well as its ability to resist, withstand, recover from an ...

'', the ship used by Shackleton's

Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition The Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition of 1914–1917 is considered to be the last major expedition of the Heroic Age of Antarctic Exploration. Conceived by Sir Ernest Shackleton, the expedition was an attempt to make the first land crossing ...

. The three-masted vessel sank in 1915 after being bound in ice before reaching Antarctica and was found during the Crew-3 mission. ''Endurance'' was first launched on 11 November 2021 (UTC) on a

Falcon 9 Block 5 Falcon 9 Block 5 is a partially reusable two-stage-to-orbit medium-lift launch vehicle designed and manufactured in the United States by SpaceX. It is the fifth version of Falcon 9 Full Thrust, powered by SpaceX Merlin engines burning rocket- ...

from the

Kennedy Space Center The John F. Kennedy Space Center (KSC, originally known as the NASA Launch Operations Center), located on Merritt Island, Florida, is one of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration's (NASA) ten field centers. Since December 1968 ...

(KSC),

LC-39A Launch Complex 39A (LC-39A) is the first of Launch Complex 39's three launch pads, located at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Merritt Island, Florida. The pad, along with Launch Complex 39B, were first designed for the Saturn V launch vehicle. T ...

, carrying NASA astronauts

Thomas Marshburn Thomas Henry Marshburn (born August 29, 1960) is an American physician and a NASA astronaut. He is a veteran of three spaceflights to the International Space Station and holds the record for the oldest person to perform a spacewalk at 61 years o ...

, and

Kayla Barron Kayla Jane Barron (born September 19, 1987) is an American submarine warfare officer, engineer and NASA astronaut. Barron was selected in June 2017 as a member of the NASA Astronaut Group 22, and later qualified as an astronaut in 2020. Barron ...

, as well as

ESA , owners = , headquarters = Paris, Île-de-France, France , coordinates = , spaceport = Guiana Space Centre , seal = File:ESA emblem seal.png , seal_size = 130px , image = Views in the Main Control Room (120 ...

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 ...

on a six-month mission to the International Space Station.

Flights

Gallery

File:Crew_Dragon_Endurance_at_the_ISS.jpg, Crew Dragon ''Endurance'' docked to the

ISS The International Space Station (ISS) is the largest modular space station currently in low Earth orbit. It is a multinational collaborative project involving five participating space agencies: NASA (United States), Roscosmos (Russia), JAXA (J ...

on the Crew-3 mission File:NASA’s SpaceX Crew-3 Splashdown (NHQ202205060008).jpg, ''Endurance'' splashdown to the Atlantic Ocean after the end of the Crew-3 mission

References

External links

* SpaceX Dragon 2 Individual space vehicles NASA spacecraft Crewed spacecraft {{Spacecraft-stub