The Dragon Endeavour first flew Bob Behnken and Doug Hurley to the International Space Station on the Demo-2 mission for NASA in May of 2020.

The capsule returned human launch capability to NASA as part of the Commercial Crew Program, which will serve U.S., Canadian, Japanese, and European astronauts as well as Russian cosmonauts.

During Demo-2, Bob and Doug named this Dragon in recognition of the Space Shuttle Endeavour - the ship that flew them both to space for the first time.

Like its namesake, Dragon Endeavour is designed for reuse and returned to Earth with Bob and Doug on August 2nd, 2020 - safely completing its first voyage after 65 days in space.

Dragon Vehicle Statistics

Total launches: 45

Visits to the ISS: 40

Total reflights: 24

Technical Specifications

Height: 8.1 m / 26.7 ft
Diameter: 4 m / 13 ft
Capsule volume: 9.3 m³ / 328 ft³
Trunk volume: 37 m³ / 1300 ft³
Launch Payload Mass: 6,000 kg / 13,228 lbs
Return Payload Mass: 3,000 kg / 6,614 lbs

Dragon for crew

This SpaceX capsule is designed to carry a crew of four to the International Space Station or other Earth orbit destinations after being launched atop a reusable Falcon 9 rocket.

The capsule includes a launch abort system, an advanced environmental control and life support system that keeps the crew safe during flight, and state-of-the-art touchscreen interfaces.

Crew Dragon is designed to operate autonomously but can be manually controlled by SpaceX teams in Hawthorne, California, and the astronauts on board.

Under the contracted crew rotation missions to the Space Station for NASA, Dragon will carry a regular crew of 4 international astronauts.

Crew Dragon is also available for private missions to Earth orbit for paying customers.

For missions to the Station, Crew Dragon can remain in orbit for up to 6 months.

For the In Flight Abort test, SpaceX will use a thrice flown Falcon 9 first stage.

The second stage will be fully loaded with fuel but will not have an engine; instead, it will have an engine mass simulator to provide an as-realistic-as-possible Falcon 9 configuration for the abort test without needlessly sacrificing a several million dollar Merlin Vac engine.

After launch, Falcon 9 will fly a normal crew launch trajectory until 88 seconds into flight - just before the period of maximum dynamic pressure, or Max-Q, on the rocket and Crew Dragon.Max-Q is the most difficult and stressful period for a rocket during launch.

At this point, Crew Dragon's SuperDraco abort engines will fire, yanking Dragon away from the top of the still-firing Falcon 9 rocket - as would happen in real life if a launch emergency occurred.

Dragon will fly itself safely away from the failing Falcon 9, deploy its parachutes, and be recovered in the Atlantic Ocean - demonstrating a key safety feature of the system for human flights.

The Falcon 9 rocket is not expected to survive the abort test, breaking up almost instantly from the extreme aerodynamic forces of Max-Q.

If the rocket does somehow survive, its Autonomous Flight Termination System will destroy the Falcon 9 for safety to land, air, and sea space - as is mandated by the U.S. Air Force which oversees all launch safety considerations for the United States.

NASA's historic Kennedy Space Center is located on Cape Canaveral, Florida, and has hosted decades of historic space missions since the early days of the Apollo program.

Today, Kennedy Space Center is a multi-user spaceport and hosts private companies like Boeing, Lockheed Martin, SpaceX, and others.

SpaceX leases Launch Complex 39A at NASA's flagship facility and uses the pad to launch its Falcon Heavy and Falcon 9 rockets. The pad is also used to launch missions for the Commercial Crew Program for which SpaceX launches astronauts to the Space Station for NASA aboard their Crew Dragon capsule.

Launch Complex 39A was previously used by NASA to launch the Apollo 11 mission to land the first humans on the moon and Space Shuttle missions to assemble the International Space Station and upgrade the Hubble Space Telescope.

Image: Erik Kuna for Supercluster