Four Astronauts Launched to the ISS in Less Than 16 Hours, SpaceX’s Fastest Dragon Flight Ever

SpaceX, the spaceflight company of billionaire Elon Musk launched four Crew-4 astronauts to the International Space Station for NASA in less than 16 hours.

A Space.com report said that this is the shortest flight since the company started its crewed flight time since it started manned flights in 2020. More so, the company just set a new record "for its fastest Dragon astronaut trip yet."

According to Steve Stitch, a Commercial Crew Program manager at NASA, this is the speediest launch to the dock they've ever done.

The space flight company launched the Crew-4 astronauts on a new Crew Dragon capsule known as Freedom and Falcon 9 rocket at 3:52 am EDT from Pad 39A of the Kennedy Space Center of NASA in Florida.

Flight in Less Than 16 Hours

The astronauts arrived at the space station later that evening, docking at 7:37 pm, EDT. The total flight time recorded is 15 hours and 45 minutes.

To compare, the first crewed flight of SpaceX for NASA, the Demo-2 mission in 2020 took approximately 19 hours to reach the station, whereas its latest Crew-3 flight of the American space agency took almost an entire day.

SpaceX's vice president of customer operations and integration Jessica Jensen said, "I'd say it's sort of a little bit of luck" when it comes to how they would up in this.

She added any delay could have changed the total time for the flight explaining, that one can vary by 10 to 20 hours of phasing just he knows in one or two days.

The SpaceX official also said that it is not really that anything was changed. Specifically, it is just the orbital mechanics of where the ISS is, not to mention, where it is coming over Florida.

Crew-4 Mission Astronauts

SpaceX's Crew-4 mission launched three NASA astronauts and another one from the European Space Agency to the space station to kick off a half-year or six-month mission.

Aboard the Freedom Crew Dragon, were Kjell Lindgren, Crew-4 mission commander; Crew-4 mission com; Bob Hines, a pilot; Jessika Watkins, mission specialist-all from NASA; and Samantha Cristoforetti, a mission specialist at the ESA.

The short SpaceX flight came just ahead of the EVA or Extravehicular Activity spacewalk in NASA parlance by two Russian cosmonauts outside the space station later this week, therefore, getting the Dragon crew docked and settled in quickly "was a bonus," officials at NASA said.

Stitch explained that this short rendezvous "was pretty favorable for us." He added, that they can get to the station a bit faster and they can do the preparations they need once they dock to prepare for EVA.

While Crew-4 Dragon flight was the fastest flight to the station of SpaceX. It was not the fastest crewed flight ever.

Essentially, the title is still held by the Soyuz spacecraft of Russia, which is detailed in a report from the NASA website and is holding the Guinness World Record for the fastest time to the station with a three-hour-three-minute trip in October 2020.

Information about the Crew-4 Dragon flight is shown on SpaceX's Video from Space's YouTube video below:

Check out more news and information on the SpaceX mission on Science Times.