里程碑！SpaceX将这4名宇航员送入太空！特朗普、拜登发推祝贺！（附视频&摘要稿）
马斯克再次创造了历史！美国东部时间周日晚上7点27分，SpaceX公司的猎鹰9号火箭照亮了大西洋上的夜空。这次发射被称为 Crew-1，是 SpaceX 为NASA执行的第一次载人航天任务，四名宇航员将在空间站停留六个月，这也将使Crew-1成为美国有史以来时间最长的一次太空飞行。
这是SpaceX首次正式展开商业运营的载人航天任务，也是一个新的突破，标志着美国的载人航天向着常规化发射迈出第一步。这次发射的成功，给美国的航天事业带来了新的希望，以后常规化发射，不用再“寄俄篱下”了。
载人龙飞船发射后不久，拜登就表示了祝贺。
「祝贺美国国家航空航天局（NASA）和SpaceX今天的发射。它证明了科学的力量，也证明了我们利用创新、独创性和决心所取得的成就。我与所有美国人和日本人民一起祝愿宇航员们旅途顺利。」
在拜登发完推文的15分钟后，特朗普也对此次发射表示祝贺，「一次伟大的发射！在我们刚接管NASA的时候，它还面临着困境。但现在，它再次成为世界上最火爆、最先进的航天中心！」
不过也有点遗憾，我们没能看见马斯克先生。
昨天，马斯克发推称自己进行了四次新冠病毒检测，其中两次结果为阳性。虽然到目前为止，他只出现了感冒症状。但疑似阳性的马斯克，无法进入卡纳维拉尔角见证这一历史时刻了。估计他现在也正郁闷呢！
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Lighting up the night sky, four astronauts shot into orbit atop a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket Sunday for a 27-hour voyage to the International Space Station in the first operational flight of a commercially developed Crew Dragon capsule.
Highlighting NASA's ongoing drive to end its sole reliance on Russian Soyuz spacecraft, the Falcon 9's first stage engines ignited with a torrent of flaming exhaust at 7:27 p.m., pushing the 229-foot-tall rocket away from pad 39A at the Kennedy Space Center atop 1.7 million pounds of thrust.
Commander Michael Hopkins, pilot Victor Glover, Shannon Walker and Japanese astronaut Soichi Noguchi, strapped into the capsule they named "Resilience," monitored the ascent on large touch-screen displays as the rocket quickly accelerated, arcing away to the northeast over the Atlantic Ocean.
NASA and SpaceX ruled out a launch try Saturday due to expected high winds across Florida's Space Coast and rough seas that prevented a SpaceX booster recovery ship from reaching its off-shore station in time.
The on-shore weather was an issue most of the say Sunday, but threatening clouds and rain did not materialize and after last-minute work to re-seal the Crew Dragon's hatch, the Falcon 9 was cleared for takeoff, thrilling thousands of area residents and tourists lining area roads and beaches amid NASA warnings to follow coronavirus protocols.
Vice President Mike Pence, chairman of the National Space Council, flew in to take in the historic launching from the upper deck of a NASA office complex a few miles from the launch pad.
And the Falcon 9 did not disappoint, streaking through the night sky trailing a long jet of fiery exhaust visible for miles around. In one minute, the rocket was traveling faster than sound and a minute-and-a-half later, now well out of the thick lower atmosphere, the engines shut down as planned.
The reusable first stage, making its maiden flight, then fell away and headed for touchdown on a SpaceX droneship stationed due east of the Carolinas while the second stage, powered by a single vacuum-rate engine, continued the climb to orbit.
Eight minutes and 50 seconds after liftoff, the second stage engine shut down, putting Hopkins and his crewmates in a preliminary orbit. Forty seconds after that, the first stage safely landed, chalking up SpaceX's 65th booster recovery, its 45th at sea.
Recovering the first stage was a major objective of the launch because SpaceX plans to refurbish the rocket and use if for the next Crew Dragon launch in late March.
In any case, with the booster safely down the Crew Dragon capsule was released from the Falcon 9's second stage a few minutes later to press ahead with a complex series of automated thruster firings to fine tune the spacecraft's approach to the space station.
The initial phases of the rendezvous went smoothly, but SpaceX engineers ran into problems with heaters used to keep thruster propellant lines at the proper temperature. Three of four heaters in one four-thruster "quad" appeared to be offline while flight rules require at least two of four to be operational.
"Temperature margins are looking OK, but that is something we are investigating and discussing," SpaceX communications officer Jay Aranha told the crew.
NASA later tweeted that, "Teams have re-enabled the Crew Dragon's propellant heaters and will continue collecting data" and followed it up with a tweet saying, "Update: @SpaceX confirms the propellant heaters are functioning properly with no issues. Crew-1 continues its journey to the @Space_Station."
President Trump and president-elect Biden offered starkly contrasting tones in post-launch tweets, with Trump claiming "@NASA was a closed up disaster when we took over. Now it is again the 'hottest', most advanced, space center in the world, by far!"
At the moment of launch, the station was sailing 259 miles above northern Syria. It will take the Crew Dragon 27-and-a-half hours to precisely match orbits with the lab complex, pulling up to within about 20 miles by 8 p.m. Monday.
If all goes well, the spacecraft will pass about 1,300 feet below the station before looping up to a point about 720 feet directly in front of the outpost.
From there, the Crew Dragon's flight computer will guide the ship in for a docking at the station's forward port, the same one once used by visiting space shuttles, at 11 p.m. Monday as the two spacecraft pass over the west coast of the United States.
It will be a long-awaited homecoming of sorts for Hopkins, Walker and Noguchi. All three are veterans of earlier long-duration station expeditions. Glover, a Navy F/A-18 carrier pilot-turned astronaut, is making his first space flight. He is the first African American to be assigned to a full-duration station crew.
Standing by to welcome the Crew-1 astronauts aboard the station will be Expedition 64 commander Sergey Ryzhikov, Sergei Kud-Sverchkov and NASA astronaut Kate Rubins. Rubins used NASA's last currently contracted Soyuz seat when she and her two crewmates blasted off Oct. 14 from the Baikonur Cosmodrome aboard the Soyuz MS-17/63S spacecraft.
"It's going to be great to watch the Crew-1 crew come through that hatch, and we'll definitely welcome them on board because with more crew members, we can spend a lot more time doing scientific research and experiments," Rubins said before launch.
"There's a certain amount of time we have to devote just to station maintenance, and with only one or two U.S. and international partner crew members, it's hard to get all of the science done that we want to do. So having all these extra crew members there means we can accomplish that much more scientifically."
Since 2006, NASA has spent $4 billion buying some 71 seats aboard Soyuz spacecraft to carry U.S., European, Canadian and Japanese astronauts to and from the station. Rubins' seat, the last one NASA plans to buy, cost $90 million.
While the Crew Dragon and, eventually, Boeing's CST-100 Starliner spacecraft will end NASA's sole reliance on Russia, it does not mean the end of joint flights.
NASA still plans to launch astronauts aboard Soyuz spacecraft through the life of the station program as a hedge against emergencies like a serious illness, for example, that could result in the early departure of a U.S. or Russian crew ship.
Mixed crews would ensure at least one astronaut or cosmonaut on board the station at all times, regardless of the sudden departure of a Soyuz or commercial crew ship, to operate their nation's systems.
But those mixed flights, including the eventual launch of Russian cosmonauts aboard the new American spacecraft, will be covered by barter arrangements, not direct cash payments. NASA will still be paying for seats aboard U.S. spacecraft — the cost is not yet known — but that money will be spent in the United States.
SpaceX 载人龙飞船的特点
2020年9月29日，指令长迈克尔·霍普金斯曾经在美国宇航局新闻发布会上透露，本次的载人龙飞船已被命名为“坚韧”号。
此前，在首次载人发射的时候，我们已经对载人龙飞船的特点进行了详细介绍，在这里再简单复述一下。
载人龙飞船属于SpaceX研制的第二代龙飞船（Dragon 2），具备可重复使用的能力。第二代龙飞船可分为载人龙飞船和货运龙飞船两种，其前身是第一代货运龙飞船（Dragon 1）。新飞船可以自动与空间站完成对接，而不像第一代飞船那样，需要借助空间站上的机械臂的帮助。当然，载人龙飞船也保留了人工对接的选项。
本次使用的载人龙飞船，直径4米，高8.1米，最多可搭载7位宇航员，这与航天飞机搭载的宇航员数量相同，也与我国5月5日测试的“新一代载人飞船”设计上能够搭载的宇航员数量相同。
载人龙飞船的最顶端是一个能够打开的头锥盖子，在发射和返回的过程中，保护飞船和对接机构。当飞船与空间站对接的时候，头锥盖子会打开，露出对接机构，当飞船脱离空间站的时候，盖子关闭，准备返回地面。
飞船主体由两大部分组成，一个是加压的返回舱，另一个是在返回舱下面的服务舱（这里要说明的是，SpaceX使用Trunk一词，而不是Service module，但从作用上看类似于服务舱，目前尚无统一的翻译）。服务舱是非加压的，可以搭载对气压不敏感的货物。
另外，服务舱外侧粘贴有太阳能电池，就像穿了个太阳能板的裙子一样，这摆脱了传统的太阳能展开翼的造型。服务舱外侧还有翼状结构，能够为飞船在逃逸过程中提供气动稳定性。
载人龙飞船的绝招：全程逃逸能力
载人龙飞船集成有8个推力强大的“超级天龙座”火箭，火箭两为分组，安装在飞船的侧壁，作为逃生使用，每个发动机的推力可达71千牛，换算成大家有直观感觉的表示方式就是相当于7.1吨的推力。此外，还装有16个推力相对较小的“天龙座”发动机喷口，用于姿态控制和轨道机动。
熟悉载人航天的朋友，可能会留意到，无论是阿波罗登月火箭，还是我国的长征2F载人运载火箭，在火箭顶部都有个逃逸塔。
图注：图注：阿波罗飞船的逃逸塔。
逃逸塔的作用就是在火箭发射起始阶段，如果发生意外，可以启动逃逸塔火箭，把飞船带离到安全的高度，然后着陆。如果发射一切顺利，等火箭飞到一定的高度，逃逸塔会分离，然后丢弃。而载人版龙飞船相当于把逃逸塔集成在船身上，这样做有什么好处呢？
这种方式能够使飞船具备“全程逃逸”的能力！也就是说，在飞船飞行的任何阶段出问题，都具备逃生能力，而逃逸塔只能保证火箭发射初始阶段的逃生。这也是未来载人飞船逃逸的新方式。
成功率100%的猎鹰9（Block 5）火箭
我们知道，SpaceX以可回收火箭名扬天下，但这次使用的是全新的猎鹰9（Block 5）火箭。
猎鹰9（Block 5）是两级运载火箭，高度70米，以液氧和煤油为推进剂，芯一级火箭装配有9台梅林发动机，总推力7600千牛，相当于760吨。在回收一级的情况下，近地轨道的运载能力为15.6吨，不回收一级的情况下，近地轨道运载能力为22.8吨，算是一款中型运载火箭。
通过上面的分析，我们可以看出，SpaceX和NASA之所以敢于载人发射，是因为拥有100%发射成功记录的猎鹰9（Block5）火箭，拥有具有全程逃逸能力的载人龙飞船以及四位经验丰富的宇航员等。
五、太空中的最大建筑物：国际空间站
载人航天飞行的目的地是国际空间站，国际空间站是目前人类在太空中建造的最大建筑物。
国际空间站总质量达420吨，长109米，宽73米，是目前太空中的最大建筑物。运行在距离地面大约400公里的近地轨道上，速度为每秒7.6公里。
国际空间站是一个拥有现代化科研设备、可开展大规模、多学科基础和应用科学研究的空间实验室，为在微重力环境下开展科学实验研究提供了大量实验载荷和资源，支持人在地球轨道长期驻留。
国际空间站项目由16个国家共同建造、运行和使用，是有史以来规模最大、耗时最长且涉及国家最多的空间国际合作项目。自1998年正式建站以来，经过十多年的建设，于2010年完成建造任务转入全面使用阶段。
目前，国际空间站主要由美国宇航局、俄罗斯国家航天集团、欧洲航天局、日本宇宙航空研究开发机构和加拿大空间局共同运营。
为什么美国急切恢复载人航天能力？
众所周知，美国在1969年就完成了人类首次登月，代表人类踏上了另一颗星球。阿波罗期间，总共完成7次载人登月发射，其中6次成功把12名宇航员送到月球。唯一的阿波罗13号虽然没有成功，但3名宇航员也毫发无损地返回了地球。
1981年，美国又成功发射了第一架航天飞机“哥伦比亚”号，一次就能把7名宇航员送上近地轨道。美国总共建造了5架航天飞机，强大的运输能力为建设国际空间站立下了汗马功劳！
但遗憾的是，挑战者号航天飞机和哥伦比亚号航天飞机分别在发射和返回时发生了事故，导致总共14名宇航员罹难。5架航天飞机失去了2架，真是非常惨痛。其中的故事想必大家都已经了解，特别是1986年挑战者号航天飞机爆炸的事件早已经编入了教科书，这里就不多赘述了。
2011年7月21日，随着阿特兰蒂斯号航天飞机在肯尼迪航天中心的降落，整个航天飞机全部停飞，从此，强大的美国失去了载人航天的能力。
今后飞国际空间站咋办呢？这时，昔日的宿敌俄罗斯伸出了橄榄枝，俄罗斯有成熟可靠的载人“联盟”飞船。当然，这可不是免费的午餐。
据说，刚开始的费用是每位宇航员2000多万美元，最近NASA购买的2020年秋天发射的一个座位，价格已经暴涨到了9000多万美元。据统计，自从航天飞机停飞以来，NASA已向俄罗斯累计支付超过35亿美元。
因此，NASA非常希望包括SpaceX在内的国内私营企业能够挑起大梁，让美国再次获得在本土发射载人飞船的能力。
龙飞船首次商业载人飞行的意义是什么？
本次是NASA与SpaceX签订的“商业载人项目”（Commercial Crew Program）的组成部分。意义至少可以从三个层面来理解：
第一个层面，对于SpaceX公司来讲，重要性毋庸置疑，本次首次商业飞行意味着拿到了商业载人航天的入场券，未来前景无可限量；
第二个层面，对于美国和NASA来讲，意味着自从2011年航天飞机退役以来，再次恢复载人航天能力。
第三个层面，对于整个世界商业航天来讲，意味着揭开了商业载人航天的帷幕，商业航天走进新时代。
探索和开发外太空是人类的共同愿望。今年，阿联酋的“希望”号火星探测器，我国的“天问一号”火星探测器和美国的“毅力号”火星车相继发射，目前正在飞往火星的漫漫旅途中。
对于SpaceX创始人马斯克来讲，载人登陆火星也是他的终极梦想，本次首次正式载人发射的成功也将促使他的梦想早日实现。
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