Crew Dragon capsules have been given names by their initial crews —Endeavour for the first, andResilience for the second. On October 7, 2021, it was announced that the third capsule will be calledEndurance.[8] The name honors the SpaceX and NASA teams that endured through apandemic, building the spacecraft and training theastronauts who flew it.[9] The name also honorsEndurance, the ship used byShackleton'sImperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition. The three-masted vessel sank in 1915 after being bound in ice before reaching Antarctica.[10]
German ESA astronautMatthias Maurer was selected first for the mission in September 2020.[11][12][13] NASA astronautsRaja Chari andThomas Marshburn were added on December 14, 2020, to the crew.[14][15] The fourth seat was left open in anticipation that a Russiancosmonaut would take the seat, marking the beginning of a barter agreement that would see NASA andRoscosmos trade seats on theSoyuz and Commercial Crew Vehicles, although in April 2021 then-acting NASA administrationSteve Jurczyk said that this agreement would be unlikely to start until after Crew-3 had launched.[16] The fourth seat was assigned toKayla Barron in May 2021.[17]
Chari is the firstrookie astronaut to command a NASA space mission since theSkylab 4 crew blasted off to theSkylab space station in 1973.Gerald Carr, who had not flown in space before, led a three-man crew on an 84-day flight on the Skylab.[18] This was also the first spaceflight for Maurer and Barron.[19]
The first astronauts of thisNASA Astronaut Group 22 (nicknamedThe Turtles) to fly to space, Raja Chari and Kayla Barron onSpaceX Crew-3 took astuffed turtle as zero-g indicator to pay a tribute to their astronaut group.[25] Additionally, to include the other crew members on board, Matthias Maurer and Tom Marshburn the turtle was named "Pfau", a German word meaning "Peacock" for Matthias Maurer, who is German, and for Tom Marshburn, who was part ofNASA Astronaut Group 19 (nicknamedThe Peacocks).[26]
The third SpaceX operational mission in theCommercial Crew Program was originally scheduled to launch on October 31, 2021.[27] However, it was delayed to November 3, 2021, due to unfavorable weather in theAtlantic Ocean,[28] and then further delayed to November 7, 2021, due to a minor medical issue with one of the astronauts.[29] Due to expectedbad weather, it was again delayed to November 9, 2021.[30]
Due to the launch delays, NASA decided to return the astronauts from Crew-2 before Crew-3 launched, thus being the first Crew Dragon indirect handover of space station crews.[31] SpaceX Crew-2 departed the station on November 8, 2021, and splashed down on November 9, 2021. SpaceX Crew-3 mission launched fromCape Canaveral on November 11, 2021, at 02:03:31UTC.[32]
The return of Crew-3 was delayed multiple times, from April 2022 to early May. Undocking happened on May 5 (05:20UTC), withsplashdown occurring the following day after spending 176 days inspace.[33]
The European segment of the mission is called "Cosmic Kiss".[34]
^"Dragon Endurance". NASA. November 14, 2021. RetrievedNovember 15, 2021.Mass: 12055 kg
^abKelvey, Jon (May 2, 2022)."Nasa's Crew-3 astronauts set to return to Earth this week".The Independent. RetrievedMay 3, 2022.Nasa's head of human spaceflight Kathy Lueders said the space agency aims to have the Crew-3 astronauts undock from the ISS in their Crew Dragon spacecraft around pm EDT on Wednesday 4 May, with a splashdown off the Florida coast to follow on 5 May.
^Kanayama, Lee (April 27, 2022)."Crew Dragon Freedom makes its first docking at the ISS on the Crew-4 mission".NASASpaceFlight.com. RetrievedMay 3, 2022.This handover is expected to be complete by May 4, when Endurance is slated to depart the ISS, however this timeline will be contingent on recovery weather conditions.
^Roulette, Joey (November 10, 2021)."More than 600 human beings have now been to space".The New York Times. RetrievedNovember 11, 2021.They've tipped the number of people to have gone to space to over 600, according to a tally maintained by NASA
Launches are separated by dots ( • ), payloads by commas ( , ), multiple names for the same satellite by slashes ( / ). Crewed flights are underlined. Launch failures are marked with the † sign. Payloads deployed from other spacecraft are (enclosed in parentheses).
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