WATCH: SpaceX Falcon 9 Rocket Booster that Carried NASA Astronauts Arrives Back at Port Canaveral

By  //  June 3, 2020

Their crane will be lifting the SpaceX booster off of the drone ship

ABOVE VIDEO:  The SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket that carried NASA astronauts Robert Behnken and Douglas Hurley aboard the company’s Crew Dragon spacecraft launched from Kennedy Space Center arrived back at Port Canaveral. Port Canaveral’s new $6.2 million mobile harbor crane arrived, which is the largest in North America. It’s the largest crane because it was designed to lift SpaceX boosters as well as other heavy cargo.

BREVARD COUNTY • PORT CANAVERAL, FLORIDA – Port Canaveral’s new $6.2 million mobile harbor crane arrived, which is the largest in North America. It’s the largest crane because it was designed to lift SpaceX boosters as well as other heavy cargo.

Their crane will be lifting this booster off of the drone ship, which will then be taken back to SpaceX for refurbishment.

The commercial crew era officially began with the launch of American astronauts on an American spacecraft from American soil.

Control of the flight has been transferred from the SpaceX launch control team at Kennedy to the mission control team at the company’s headquarters in Hawthorne, California.

The nine Merlin engines on the Falcon rocket’s first stage are generating more than 1.7 million pounds of thrust as the vehicle climbs away from Florida’s Space Coast.

WATCH REPLAY!  The SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket carrying NASA astronauts Robert Behnken and Douglas Hurley aboard the company’s Crew Dragon spacecraft launched from Kennedy Space Center’s historic Launch Pad 39A at 3:22 p.m. EDT, kicking off a critical final flight test of the SpaceX crew transportation system.

At about one minute into the flight, the rocket passed through Max Q, the point of peak mechanical stress on the rocket.

The SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket’s second-stage Merlin engine then shut down as planned. Separation of the Crew Dragon spacecraft from the second stage as the Falcon 9 rocket’s first stage is descending toward SpaceX’s drone ship, “Of Course I Still Love You,” waiting in the Atlantic Ocean.

Twelve minutes into the flight of the SpaceX Crew Dragon carrying NASA astronauts Robert Behnken and Douglas Hurley, the spacecraft separated from the Falcon 9 rocket’s second stage, signaling the end of the climb to space.

NASA’s SpaceX Demo-2 mission, a final end-to-end flight test of the company’s crew transportation system, is underway with the return of human spaceflight capability to U.S. soil.

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