SpaceX Inspiration4 Mission

On Wednesday evening, SpaceX launched the Inspiration4 crew to space aboard the Crew Dragon “Resilience”. It was an historic flight for many reasons, the primary being that this was the first time a commercial operator launched civilian astronauts into orbit.

Initially, this launch was interesting to me simply for the historic first, but then I watched Countdown: Inspiration4 Mission to Space on Netflix. If you haven’t watched this, I highly recommend that you do. After watching the first two episodes, I had a much more complete understanding of what the flight represented and the civilian astronauts involved in the flight. I no longer thought of this space flight as a “space tourist” money grab; which is what I think about the Blue Origin and Virgin Galactic flights. This flight was about much more than that.

The launch was scheduled for 8:02 PM. After work and school, we left the condo and headed for Titusville. We gave ourselves over two hours to get there, in case it was crowded. Almost immediately after leaving, I wished we had left an hour earlier. There were two crashes on our route, one of which had an entire highway shut down. Thanks to Google Maps, we were routed around the problem areas. It was interesting to see our estimated arrival time changing as the app offered different routes.

Around 7:15, we were getting pretty close to Titusville. We caught up to the end of a long backup on highway 50 where people were trying to go north on Interstate 95. We stayed to the right and continued all the way to the river. Then we headed north on US 1 and stopped at Sand Point Park.

By 7:30, we were parked and started looking for the best viewing spot we could walk to in 20 minutes. We decided to walk up the A. Max Brewer Bridge. Many people had the same idea. We continued up the bridge until nearly reaching the top of the span, then found an open area and stopped. I pulled out my binoculars while Andrew proceeded to set up his Osmo for a motion lapse video. Right on schedule, the Falcon 9 lifted off into the clear evening sky.

The launch was spectacular. After main engine cutoff and separation, we could see the second stage light and continue climbing to the northeast. Meanwhile, stage one began to maneuver towards its landing on the barge, Just Read The Instructions. Each time a thruster fired, a pressure wave was seen radiating outward into the vapor cloud left by stage 2. It must be seen to be believed. And to top it all off, we saw the re-entry burn fire as stage 1 slowed to return to the atmosphere.

Over the next few days, while the crew orbited Earth, higher than any astronauts ever, with the exception of the astronauts who went to the moon and those who worked on the Hubble Telescope, we watched Episodes 3 and 4 of the Netflix special. At this point, we not only knew the purpose of the mission, but we also felt like we knew the astronauts, and their families. We wanted nothing but the best for everyone involved.

Tonight, the crew was scheduled to splash down in the Atlantic Ocean off the coast of Cape Canaveral. Mom was visiting at the time, so we planned a trip to the beach, followed by dinner out afterwards. We drove up to Cherie Down Park and walked out onto the boardwalk. Andrew followed the re-entry progress on the SpaceX YouTube broadcast while we waited for the Crew Dragon to pass overhead. Somewhere over the Gulf of Mexico, the capsule entered the seven minute blackout period where communication with the crew is not possible.

When communication returned, we knew that the capsule should pass overhead at any minute. The sky was cloudy, but there was a nice blue patch directly above us. By this time, a small crowd had joined us on the boardwalk and many more people on the beach were looking up. And then we heard it; the twin sonic booms. The broadcast announced that the drogue chutes had opened, followed by the main chutes, then finally splash down. Unfortunately we couldn’t see any of that, but we did get to hear the booms.