SpaceX Crew-1 (was also known as USCV-1 or simply Crew-1) was the first operational crewed flight of a

Crew Dragon Dragon 2 is a class of partially reusable spacecraft developed, manufactured, and operated by the American space company SpaceX for flights to the International Space Station (ISS) and private spaceflight missions. The spacecraft, which consi ...

spacecraft and the

maiden flight The maiden flight, also known as first flight, of an aircraft is the first occasion on which it leaves the ground under its own power. The same term is also used for the first launch of rockets. In the early days of aviation it could be dange ...

of the Crew Dragon ''Resilience'' spacecraft. It was also the second crewed orbital flight launch by the United States since that of

STS-135 STS-135 ( ISS assembly flight ULF7) was the 135th and final mission of the American Space Shuttle program. It used the orbiter '' Atlantis'' and hardware originally processed for the STS-335 contingency mission, which was not flown. STS-135 ...

in July 2011. ''Resilience'' launched on 16 November 2020 at 00:27:17

UTC Coordinated Universal Time (UTC) is the primary time standard globally used to regulate clocks and time. It establishes a reference for the current time, forming the basis for civil time and time zones. UTC facilitates international communica ...

on a

Falcon 9 Falcon 9 is a Reusable launch system#Partial reusable launch systems, partially reusable, two-stage-to-orbit, medium-lift launch vehicle designed and manufactured in the United States by SpaceX. The first Falcon 9 launch was on June 4, 2010, an ...

from

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 NASA, National Aeronautics and Space Administration's (NASA) ten NASA facilities#List of field c ...

Launch Complex 39A (LC-39A), carrying

NASA The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA ) is an independent agencies of the United States government, independent agency of the federal government of the United States, US federal government responsible for the United States ...

astronauts An astronaut (from the Ancient Greek (), meaning 'star', and (), meaning 'sailor') is a person trained, equipped, and deployed by a List of human spaceflight programs, human spaceflight program to serve as a commander or crew member of a spa ...

Michael Hopkins, Victor Glover and Shannon Walker, along with

JAXA The is the Japanese national air and space agency. Through the merger of three previously independent organizations, JAXA was formed on 1 October 2003. JAXA is responsible for research, technology development and launch of satellites into o ...

astronaut

Soichi Noguchi is a Japanese aeronautical engineer and former Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency, JAXA astronaut. His first spaceflight was as a mission specialist aboard STS-114 on 26 July 2005 for NASA's first "return to flight" Space Shuttle program, Spac ...

, all members of the Expedition 64 crew. The mission was the second overall crewed orbital flight of the Crew Dragon. Crew-1 was the first operational mission to the

International Space Station The International Space Station (ISS) is a large space station that was Assembly of the International Space Station, assembled and is maintained in low Earth orbit by a collaboration of five space agencies and their contractors: NASA (United ...

(ISS) in the

Commercial Crew Program The Commercial Crew Program (CCP) provides Private spaceflight, commercially operated human spaceflight, crew transportation service to and from the International Space Station (ISS) under contract to NASA, conducting crew rotations between t ...

. Originally designated "USCV-1" by NASA in 2012, the launch date was delayed several times from the original date of November 2016. The mission was scheduled to depart the ISS on 28 April 2021, but due to weather returned to Earth on 2 May 2021. The capsule splashed down at 06:56:33 UTC, to be reused on

Inspiration4 Inspiration4 (stylized as Inspirati④n) was a 2021 human spaceflight operated by SpaceX on behalf of Shift4 Payments CEO Jared Isaacman. The mission launched the Crew Dragon Crew Dragon Resilience, ''Resilience'' on 16 September 2021 at 00:02: ...

. It was the first nighttime splashdown for NASA astronauts since

Apollo 8 Apollo 8 (December 21–27, 1968) was the first crewed spacecraft to leave Sphere of influence (astrodynamics), Earth's gravitational sphere of influence, and the first human spaceflight to reach the Moon. The crew orbited the Moon ten times ...

in 1968. On 7 February 2021, the Crew-1 broke the record for the longest spaceflight by a U.S. crewed vehicle, surpassing the 84-day mark set by an Apollo capsule on the final flight to the

Skylab Skylab was the United States' first space station, launched by NASA, occupied for about 24 weeks between May 1973 and February 1974. It was operated by three trios of astronaut crews: Skylab 2, Skylab 3, and Skylab 4. Skylab was constructe ...

( Skylab-4) space station on 8 February 1974.

Background

The first operational mission in the

, originally designated "USCV-1" (United States Crew Vehicle-mission 1) by NASA, was initially announced in November 2012, with a launch date set for November 2016. In April 2013, it was announced that the launch would be delayed by one year to November 2017. It was then delayed into 2019 and 2020, pending the success of the uncrewed and crewed demonstration missions, respectively. Following the Crew Dragon Demonstration Mission 2, Crew-1 was tentatively scheduled for September 2020; further delays occurred to align with the ongoing

COVID-19 pandemic The COVID-19 pandemic (also known as the coronavirus pandemic and COVID pandemic), caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), began with an disease outbreak, outbreak of COVID-19 in Wuhan, China, in December ...

restrictions and their impact on the schedule of ISS crew rotations and cargo delivery missions, and then again because of concerns about an issue with the gas generators on the Merlin 1D engines. On 29 September 2020, mission commander Michael Hopkins revealed during a NASA press conference that the capsule's crew had chosen to name it ''Resilience''. Due to the

COVID-19 pandemic in Florida On March 1, 2020, the U.S. state of Florida officially reported its first two COVID-19 cases in Manatee County, Florida, Manatee and Hillsborough County, Florida, Hillsborough counties. There is evidence, however, that community spread of COV ...

, the

Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex The Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex is the visitor center at NASA's Kennedy Space Center on Merritt Island, Florida. It features exhibits and displays, historic spacecraft and memorabilia, shows, two IMAX theaters, and a range of bus tou ...

only allowed a few people to watch the launch in person from the KSC premises.

Crew

NASA astronauts Michael S. Hopkins and Victor J. Glover were announced as the crew on 3 August 2018.

astronaut

and the third NASA astronaut, Shannon Walker, were added to the crew on 31 March 2020.

Preparations

Crew-1's Falcon 9 launch vehicle arrived at Cape Canaveral, Florida, on 14 July 2020. Crew Dragon capsule C207 arrived at SpaceX processing facilities in Florida, on 18 August 2020. The successful launch of the Falcon 9 launch vehicle from

Cape Canaveral Air Force Station Cape Canaveral Space Force Station (CCSFS) is an installation of the United States Space Force's Space Launch Delta 45, located on Cape Canaveral in Brevard County, Florida. Headquartered at the nearby Patrick Space Force Base, the sta ...

(CCAFS) on 5 November 2020 was a milestone leading up to the Crew-1 mission. Falcon 9 successfully deployed a

GPS The Global Positioning System (GPS) is a satellite-based hyperbolic navigation system owned by the United States Space Force and operated by Mission Delta 31. It is one of the global navigation satellite systems (GNSS) that provide geol ...

navigation satellite A satellite navigation or satnav system is a system that uses satellites to provide autonomous geopositioning. A satellite navigation system with global coverage is termed global navigation satellite system (GNSS). , four global systems are op ...

( GPS III-04) for the

United States Space Force The United States Space Force (USSF) is the space force branch of the United States Department of Defense. It is one of the six United States Armed Forces, armed forces of the United States and one of the eight uniformed services of the Unite ...

(USSF), confirming that engineers had resolved an issue with Merlin 1D engines that delayed the GPS mission and the Crew-1 flight. The crew arrived at Kennedy Space Center via a NASA Gulfstream jet on 8 November 2020 at 13:53 UTC. A Flight Readiness Review (FRR) convened by NASA officials was scheduled on 10 November 2020 to discuss unresolved technical issues, review the status of launch preparations, and give approval for teams to proceed with the Crew-1 mission. NASA officials gave approval on 10 November 2020 for SpaceX to begin regular crew rotation flights to the International Space Station, signaling a transition from development to operations for the

human-rated Human-rating certification, also known as man-rating or crew-rating, is the certification of a spacecraft or launch vehicle as capable of safely transporting humans. There is no one particular standard for human-rating a spacecraft or launch veh ...

spacecraft. The launch vehicle was lifted to its vertical position on the pad for a test firing of its Merlin-1D main engines on 11 November 2020 at 20:49 UTC. A dry dress rehearsal (DDR) on 12 November 2020 saw the crew put on their pressure suits and climb into ''Resilience''. SpaceX ran a launch readiness review (LRR) on 13 November 2020.

Mission

On 15 November 2020, final pre-launch preparations were completed. The hatch of ''Resilience'' was closed at 22:32 UTC, but reopened briefly after a slight drop in pressure was detected. Troubleshooting the hatch seal led to discovery of a small amount of foreign object debris (FOD) in the seal. The hatch was then closed again, and mission controllers proceeded with the countdown. No further concerns were noted, and on 16 November 2020 at 00:27:17 UTC, ''Resilience'' lifted off successfully. Its Falcon 9 first-stage booster, SN B1061.1, landed on the

autonomous spaceport drone ship An autonomous spaceport drone ship (ASDS) is a modified ocean-going barge developed by SpaceX and equipped with propulsion systems to maintain precise position and a large floating landing platform, landing platform. They were developed to re ...

''Just Read the Instructions''. The astronauts entered a stable orbit after about nine minutes. For this mission, the crew had chosen a plush toy of " The Child" (also known as "Baby Yoda") from ''

The Mandalorian ''The Mandalorian'' is an American space Western television series created by Jon Favreau for the streaming service Disney+. It is the first live-action series in the ''Star Wars'' franchise and begins five years after the events of the fil ...

'' as a Zero-G indicator. The crew were awakened on the second day of the flight with

Phil Collins Philip David Charles Collins (born 30 January 1951) is an English musician, songwriter, record producer and actor. He was the drummer and later became the lead singer of the rock band Genesis (band), Genesis and had a successful solo career, ac ...

's "

In the Air Tonight "In the Air Tonight" is the debut solo single by English drummer and singer-songwriter Phil Collins. It was released as the lead single from Collins's debut solo album, ''Face Value (album), Face Value'', in January 1981. It was selected as the s ...

". ''Resilience'' docked to the

International Docking Adapter The International Docking Adapter (IDA) is a spacecraft docking system adapter developed to convert APAS-95 to support docking with spacecraft that implement the International Docking System Standard. The IDA uses NASA Docking System (NDS) hard ...

(IDA) on the ''Harmony'' module on 17 November 2020 at 04:01 UTC. Over the course of the mission, the four astronauts lived and worked alongside the three astronauts of the

Soyuz MS-17 Soyuz MS-17 was a Soyuz spaceflight that was launched on 14 October 2020. It transported three crew members of the Expedition 63/ 64 crew to the International Space Station. Soyuz MS-17 was the 145th crewed flight of a Soyuz spacecraft. The cr ...

mission. Together, the two missions form ISS Expedition 64. Assuming the regular ISS crew rotation schedule is adhered to, the crew transfer to Expedition 65 following the departure of Soyuz MS-17, on 17 April 2021. On 5 April 2021, the Crew-1 astronauts relocated their spacecraft from ''Harmony'' forward to ''Harmony''

zenith The zenith (, ) is the imaginary point on the celestial sphere directly "above" a particular location. "Above" means in the vertical direction (Vertical and horizontal, plumb line) opposite to the gravity direction at that location (nadir). The z ...

by using the Draco thrusters that are mounted on the side of Dragon Resilience's trunk, to make way for the arrival and docking of the

SpaceX Crew-2 SpaceX Crew-2 was the second operational flight of a SpaceX Dragon 2, Crew Dragon spacecraft, and the third overall crewed orbital flight of the Commercial Crew Program. The mission was launched on 23 April 2021 at 09:49:02 Coordinated Univers ...

spacecraft, launched on 23 April 2021. In July 2022, it was reported that some of the debris from Crew 1 Dragon crashed into a farm in Australia. SpaceX Crew-1 poster

Timeline

Gallery

Notes

References

{{Orbital launches in 2020 SpaceX Dragon 2 Spacecraft launched in 2020 Spacecraft which reentered in 2021 SpaceX payloads contracted by NASA SpaceX human spaceflights 2020 in the United States 2021 in the United States Successful space missions