Crew Dragon performing 'extremely well' on orbit

A view of Crew Dragon as seen by astronauts during U.S. EVA-65 on June 26, 2020. Credit: NASA

The Demo-2 Crew Dragon capsule, which its astronaut riders, NASA's Doug Hurley and Bob Behnken, named Endeavour — after the space shuttle they both first flew into space aboard — has been docked to the forward docking port on the space station's Harmony module since May 31, 2020.

Since then, the spacecraft has been going through a number of evaluations to ensure it is ready for operational missions later this year.

Credit: NASA

"The vehicle's doing extremely well as we put it through its paces," said NASA's Commercial Crew Program Manager Steve Stich during a June 24 spacewalk briefing. "We've been spending a lot of time watching how it performs thermally as we approach the period of time where the sun is a little bit brighter on the orbit toward the high-beta periods."

According to Stich, the spacecraft is mainly in a quiet state most of the time, but the crew is commanded to power up the vehicle every now and then, usually on Wednesdays, to check various systems.

In particular, managers are looking at the power being generated by the spacecraft's solar cells on the Crew Dragon trunk. NASA has said these particular cells on the Demo-2 mission have a life of about 110-120 days.

Stich said the cells are generating power right about where they expected them to be, if not a bit more.

One test that was recently completed was a 24-hour crew safe-haven capability evaluation. This showed that astronauts and cosmonauts could seek shelter inside the capsule while docked to the ISS, if needed.

Crew Dragon as it approaches the ISS for docking on May 31, 2020. Credit: NASA

Other tests completed include data and voice communication exchanges and updates to Crew Dragon tablets.

Sometime in July, NASA expects to evaluate the habitability of Crew Dragon with four people living inside. This will help inform the space agency and future occupants of the spacecraft design and how four people would sleep and use systems while traveling to the space station, or coming back to Earth.

The SpaceX Crew-1 mission, which will be the first operational flight of Crew Dragon, is expected to occur at least six weeks after the conclusion of the Demo-2 mission.

According to Stich, this should be enough time to allow teams on the ground to evaluate the performance of the Demo-2 mission, including undocking, reentry and splashdown.

As of early July, NASA is looking at a return date of no earlier than Aug. 2. They are expected to splash down in the Atlantic Ocean, just off the coast of Cape Canaveral, Florida.