SpaceX’s Crew-6 mission successfully docked with the International Space Station (ISS) earlier today after a day-long journey to the space station. The mission took place on the Crew Dragon spacecraft, which had lifted off on the Falcon 9 rocket from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida yesterday after an initial scrub caused by blocked filters for the rocket’s ignition fluid made engineers stand down from liftoff. The Dragon’s journey was overall smooth, except for one of the clamps, designed to secure the ship’s nose cone and dock it with the space station, causing some problems during flight and delaying its preliminary docking with the ISS.
SpaceX’s Crew Dragon Docks With The International Space Station
While before the mission’s lift-off, engineers had to replace filters for the Falcon 9’s ignition fluid, SpaceX’s Benji Reed also outlined during the post-launch press conference that his company and NASA were aware of problems with a faulty sensor on the Crew Dragon’s nose cone.
Mr. Reed explained during the conference that each hook on the spaceship has three sensors that provide data for their position and operational status. Out of these, one sensor was sending faulty data, which had caused the hooks to be shifted to the backup motors. As part of pre-launch testing, SpaceX had overridden this sensor and confirmed that the hooks were performing nominally to clear the spaceship for launch.
The Crew-6 astronauts make their way inside the space station after docking. Image: NASA
These problems also surfaced as the Dragon initially made its way to the space station. During its journey, the spacecraft opens its top cover after it has left the Earth’s atmosphere so that its forward Draco engines can start to fire to align the ship with the ISS. For the Crew-6 mission, as the nosecone was about to open, engineers discovered that one of the hooks was sending faulty data.
At this point, roughly 17 minutes after liftoff, SpaceX mission control explained to the astronauts that:
At this time I can provide you an update that we had nominal dehumidifier activation and service section Draco checkouts. For your awareness, on hard capture hook five, we did swap to backup motors so you’ll see that the nosecone opening did swap to backup. However all hooks did indicate they were traveling and looked good on backup.
This same hook also sent faulty data as the Dragon was inside the keep-out sphere around the space station and 20 meters away from the space laboratory. Engineers worked to send a software command to the spaceship as it waited to dock. During this time, the hook was operating nominally, but the switch was sending incorrect data. The software command ensured that the sensor’s data was overridden to disable the switch and allow the Crew Dragon to safely dock to the ISS.
Engineers had a two hour margin to work with their spaceship, and soon NASA’s Gary Jordan confirmed that the hooks had deployed for a hard capture. These hooks are divided into two gangs, and Jordan confirmed by outlining that:
The hooks are deployed There are twelve total hooks to help us have a hard capture. And they are in two sets of six, called gangs. The first gang of six, we’re hearing good calls from the flight control team, they are driving as expected.
The Crew-6 mission docked with the ISS at 10:40 pm Pacific time as it was flying 261 statute miles off of the coast of Somalia. The errant switches led to the docking being delayed by 23 minutes, with the hatch opening at 3:45 am eastern time.
NASA’s associate administrator for space operations Ms. Kathy Leuders made a surprise appearance at the Crew-6 welcoming ceremony to the ISS as she shared that while the Crew-6 mission might be over, her agency still has to bring back Crew-5 from the ISS as well as fly Boeing’s Starliner mission to the station as part of its first crewed flight.
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