SpaceX Crew-2 was the second operational flight of a

Crew Dragon Dragon 2 is a class of partially reusable spacecraft developed and manufactured by American aerospace manufacturer SpaceX, primarily for flights to the International Space Station (ISS). SpaceX has also launched private missions such as In ...

spacecraft, and the third overall crewed orbital flight of the

Commercial Crew Program The Commercial Crew Program (CCP) provides commercially-operated crew transportation service to and from the International Space Station (ISS) under contract to NASA, conducting crew rotations between the expeditions of the International Sp ...

. The mission was launched on 23 April 2021 at 09:49:02 UTC, and docked to the

International Space Station The International Space Station (ISS) is the largest Modular design, modular space station currently in low Earth orbit. It is a multinational collaborative project involving five participating space agencies: NASA (United States), Roscosmos ( ...

on 24 April at 09:08 UTC. SpaceX Crew-2 used the same capsule as

Crew Dragon Demo-2 Crew Dragon Demo-2 (officially Crew Demo-2, SpaceX Demo-2, or Demonstration Mission-2) was the first crewed test flight of the Crew Dragon spacecraft. The spacecraft, named ''Endeavour'', launched on 30 May 2020 on a Falcon 9 booster, and car ...

''(

Endeavour Endeavour or endeavor may refer to: People Fictional characters * Endeavour Morse, central character of the ''Inspector Morse'' novels by Colin Dexter * Endeavor, the hero name for the character Enji Todoroki from the anime series ''My Hero A ...

)'' and launched on the same

Falcon 9 Falcon 9 is a partially reusable medium lift launch vehicle that can carry cargo and crew into Earth orbit, produced by American aerospace company SpaceX. The rocket has two stages. The first (booster) stage carries the second stage and pa ...

booster as SpaceX Crew-1 (B1061.1). With its return to Earth the evening of 9 November 2021, the mission set a record for the longest spaceflight by a U.S. crewed spacecraft, 199 days.

Crew

On 28 July 2020,

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 ...

ESA , owners = , headquarters = Paris, Île-de-France, France , coordinates = , spaceport = Guiana Space Centre , seal = File:ESA emblem seal.png , seal_size = 130px , image = Views in the Main Control Room (1 ...

and

NASA The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA ) is an independent agency of the US federal government responsible for the civil space program, aeronautics research, and space research. NASA was established in 1958, succeedi ...

confirmed their

astronaut An astronaut (from the Ancient Greek (), meaning 'star', and (), meaning 'sailor') is a person trained, equipped, and deployed by a human spaceflight program to serve as a commander or crew member aboard a spacecraft. Although generally r ...

assignments aboard this mission. German astronaut

Matthias Maurer Matthias Josef Maurer (born 18 March 1970) is a German European Space Agency astronaut and Materials scientist, who was selected in 2015 to take part in space training. Biography Maurer graduated from in Sankt Wendel, Saarland, in 1989.) He t ...

was the backup for Pesquet, while Japanese astronaut

Satoshi Furukawa is a Japanese surgeon and JAXA astronaut. Furukawa was assigned to the International Space Station as a flight engineer on long-duration missions Expedition 28/ 29, lifting off 7 June 2011 and returning 22 November 2011. Medical career Furakaw ...

trained as backup to Hoshide.

Mission

The second SpaceX operational mission in the

launched on 23 April 2021. The Crew Dragon ''Endeavour'' (C206), docked to the

International Docking Adapter The International Docking Adapter (IDA) is a spacecraft docking system adapter developed to convert APAS-95 to the NASA Docking System (NDS). An IDA is placed on each of the International Space Station's (ISS) two open Pressurized Mating Adap ...

(IDA) on the ''Harmony'' module at its forward port. This mission was the first with astronauts on board with a previously used booster launch vehicle. All crew members were veteran astronauts, though this was Megan McArthur's first visit to the ISS (as her first spaceflight was STS-125, a mission to the Hubble Space Telescope). McArthur used the same seat on the

SpaceX Space Exploration Technologies Corp. (SpaceX) is an American spacecraft manufacturer, launcher, and a satellite communications corporation headquartered in Hawthorne, California. It was founded in 2002 by Elon Musk with the stated goal of ...

'' in this mission which her husband,

Bob Behnken Robert Louis Behnken (; born July 28, 1970, in St. Ann, Missouri) is a NASA astronaut, engineer, and former Chief of the Astronaut Office. Behnken holds a Ph.D in mechanical engineering and the rank of colonel in the U.S. Air Force, where he ...

, used on the Demo-2 mission.

Akihiko Hoshide is a Japanese engineer, JAXA astronaut, and former Commander of the International Space Station. On August 30, 2012, Hoshide became the third Japanese astronaut to walk in space. Early life and education He was born in 1968 in Tokyo, Japan. H ...

served as the second Japanese ISS commander during his stay. It was the second mission by Thomas Pesquet to the International Space Station and was named ''Alpha'', after

Alpha Centauri Alpha Centauri ( Latinized from α Centauri and often abbreviated Alpha Cen or α Cen) is a triple star system in the constellation of Centaurus. It consists of 3 stars: Alpha Centauri A (officially Rigil Kentaurus), Alpha Centau ...

, the closest star system to Earth. As preparation for the launch of Starliner, the Crew Dragon Endeavour docked to ISS at ''Harmony'' forward port for its Crew-2 mission was undocked at 10:45 UTC and relocated to ''Harmony'' zenith port on 21 July 2021, at 11:36 UTC. With CRS-23, ( C208) and

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 ''Resilience'' on 16 September 2021 at 00:02:56 UTC from Kennedy ...

('' Resilience''), three Dragon spacecraft were in space at the same time, from 16 to 18 September 2021 (UTC).

Timeline

File:Crew-2 On Pad.jpg, NASA's SpaceX Crew-2 mission undergoing preflight operations File:SpaceX Crew-2 Launch (NHQ202104230038).jpg, Falcon 9 and ''Endeavour'' launch from LC-39A, at the Kennedy Space Center, with the SpaceX Crew-2 crew members aboard, on Friday, April 23rd, 2021 File:SpaceX Crew-2 Commercial Crew Poster.png, SpaceX Crew-2 promotional poster

Wake-up calls

NASA began a tradition of playing music to astronauts during the

Gemini program Project Gemini () was NASA's second human spaceflight program. Conducted between projects Mercury and Apollo, Gemini started in 1961 and concluded in 1966. The Gemini spacecraft carried a two-astronaut crew. Ten Gemini crews and 16 individual ...

, and first used music to wake up a flight crew during

Apollo 15 Apollo 15 (July 26August 7, 1971) was the ninth crewed mission in the United States' Apollo program and the fourth to land on the Moon. It was the first J mission, with a longer stay on the Moon and a greater focus on science than ea ...

. Each track is specially chosen, often by the astronauts' families, and usually has a special meaning to an individual member of the crew, or is applicable to their daily activities.

Return

Due to weather delays and a minor health problem with one of the SpaceX Crew-3 crew, NASA decided to bring home the Crew-2 astronauts from the ISS before launching Crew-3, thus being the first Crew Dragon indirect handover of space station crews. The Crew Dragon undocked from the station at 19:05 UTC on 8 November 2021 and splashed down off the coast of Florida at 03:33 UTC on 9 November 2021. One of four parachutes deployed slower than the others.

Crew

Mission

Timeline

Wake-up calls

Return

See also