SpaceX has released a new video showing highlights from the historic Crew-1 mission to the International Space Station that ended successfully earlier this month.
NASA astronauts Mike Hopkins, Victor Glover, and Shannon Walker, along with Soichi Noguchi of Japan’s JAXA space agency, blasted off from Launch Complex 39A on November 15, 2020, before returning to Earth in a splashdown in the Gulf of Mexico on May 2.
“There’s just an electricity in the air as that countdown is happening, the engines light, and liftoff occurs,” Crew Dragon commander Mike Hopkins says alongside a clip showing SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket lifting off to begin the astronauts’ journey to the orbiting outpost.
Speaking about staying aboard the space station, Shannon Walker said: “It’s really hard to explain, living and working in zero-g. It’s fascinating how normal it becomes; it just feels like you’ve done it your whole life.”
Spending around six months in space, some 250 miles above Earth, clearly has a profound effect on astronauts who get to experience life on the space station.
“Sometimes you have to leave something to understand how special it is,” Hopkins said. “Getting the opportunity to go to space kind of gives you same feeling about our home planet.”
The Crew-1 mission was notable for being the first operational flight of SpaceX’s Crew Dragon spacecraft after the successful Demo-2 test flight in the summer of 2020 with NASA astronauts Doug Hurley and Bob Behnken.
The Crew-1 mission was also further proof of SpaceX’s aptitude as a commercial provider of safe and reliable space transportation, which helped to return crewed launches and landings to the U.S. following a decade-long layoff after the Space Shuttle program ended in 2011.
For a more in-depth look at SpaceX’s recent Crew-1 mission, be sure to check out Digital Trends’ article showing the entire expedition in photos and videos, many shot by the astronauts themselves.
