SpaceX has just set a new record for its fastest trip with astronaut Dragon to date.
Elon Musk’s space flight company launched four Crew-4 astronauts to NASA’s International Space Station in less than 16 hours on Wednesday (April 27th), the shortest flight time since SpaceX began crewing in 2020.
“This is the fastest jumping launch we’ve ever made,” Steve Stitch, NASA’s Commercial Crew Program Manager, told reporters after the launch early Wednesday. “It’s about the same amount of time it takes to travel from New York to Singapore, so it’s quite interesting.”
SpaceX launched the Crew-4 astronauts on a new Crew Dragon capsule called Freedom and Falcon 9 at 3:52 a.m. EDT (0752 GMT) from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center 39A in Florida. The astronauts arrived at the space station later that night, arriving at 7:37 p.m. EDT (2337 GMT). Total flight time: 15 hours and 45 minutes.
Related: Amazing photos from the launch of the Crew-4 astronauts on SpaceX
By comparison, SpaceX’s first manned flight to NASA, the Demo-2 mission in May 2020, took about 19 hours to reach the station, while his last Crew-3 flight to NASA took almost a full day.
“I would say I’m a little lucky to be able to handle that,” said Jessica Jensen, SpaceX’s vice president of operations and customer integration, adding that any delay could change flight times. “You can vary the phase by 10 to 20 hours, you only know in a day or two. We haven’t really changed anything, just the orbital mechanics of where the ISS is and where it’s coming over Florida.”
The Crew-4 mission took three NASA astronauts and one astronaut from the European Space Agency to the space station to begin a six-month mission. On board the Crew Dragon, called Freedom, were Crew-4 mission commander Kjell Lindgren; pilot Bob Hines; Mission Specialist Jessica Watkins (all from NASA); and mission specialist Samantha Christophoretti of the European Space Agency.
The shorter SpaceX flight came just before a spacewalk (off-ship or EVA in NASA language) by two Russian astronauts outside the space station on Thursday, so the Dragon crew’s attachment and rapid accommodation was a bonus, NASA officials said. .
“This brief meeting was very favorable for us,” Stitch said. “We can get to the station a little faster and we can do the preparation we need after we dock to prepare the dragon for EVA.”
While the Crew-4 Dragon was the fastest SpaceX flight to the station, it was not the fastest crew flight ever. This title is still held by the Russian spacecraft Soyuz, which holds the Guinness World Record for the fastest time to the station with a 3-hour and 3-minute trip in October 2020.
Send Tariq Malik an email to tmalik@space.com or follow @tariqjmalik. Follow us @Spacedotcom, Facebook and Instagram.
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