LIVE! SpaceX Polaris Dawn Countdown To Return

well good evening everyone and welcome here to the Launchpad and our continuing live coverage of the historic Polaris Dawn Mission we are now just under 6 hours and Counting till targeted splash down of crew Dragon resilience in the Gulf of Mexico at the southernmost Splashdown site we've seen SpaceX use in a number of years if it's your first time here though welcome my name is Zach I'm the founder and host here at the Launchpad and here at TLP it's our mission to inform and Inspire the explorers of tomorrow because we believe that space is better together and we're glad to have you all joining us live you're joining us on our live countdown to return tracker where'll be bringing you the latest updates on the current location of crew Dragon resilience and crew operations as they prepare for their deorbit burn SpaceX is planning to begin their live coverage about an hour prior to splash down of course we will patch that in and listen in for those live updates in the meantime we're going to be answering your live comments and questions while we continue to monitor the final hours of the historic piston Mission and see that crew successfully come home with splash down targeting 3:36 a.m. eastern tonight we got people tuning in from all over the world and we're glad to have you all joining us here we've got Greg in Oklahoma Christine is also in Oklahoma we got Blake in reeno someone is in Florida Michelle is in Vancouver BC we got Jin in Manhattan Kyle's in New Jersey we got Bart in Poland Allan is in Duvall we got Gary in Washington lots of people tuning in from absolutely all over the world and we're glad to have you all with us here this evening now now the crew is uh currently on board of course Dragon they're not in their suits as of yet they'll begin suit up in just a few hours time and we'll get that uh timeline for you as people are joining in here we got Dave in Michigan Justin's in Mississippi Jeff's in Canada we got Tyler in Orlando on vacation great to have you here we also have reval and South Africa Julie's in Virginia and K Roberts in Tennessee now for those in Florida they are targeting splash down over in the Gulf of Mexico so uh it is more unlikely that we'll hear a sonic boom uh at least on the Space Coast but if you do happen to be down there on those keys area there is a possibility that you might hear it uh but it is a lot more likely if you happen to be out in the Gulf of Mexico now if you happen to capture photos or videos of today's re-entry it is a southern re-entry trajectory so it's been flying mostly over the ocean uh and a little bit of Central America make sure you send those in to us on our Discord or on social media if you haven't yet take a moment engage that like button share out the stream invite people to join us as we countdown just over 5 and a half hours until Splashdown I'll be back with more commentary updates stay with us right here on the Launchpad Network e e e e e e e e e for for for e for e for for for e e e for e for e for for for e e for e for for e e for for e e for for for for e e for for for e for for e for e for e e for for for e for e for for for for for e e e for e e e for e for for for for for that for for e e e for e for e e e e e e e for e for for for for that for e for e e e e e e for for for for for for for for e e e e e e e for e e e for for for for for for for for e e for e e e e e e e e e e for for for for e for for e for e for e e e e e e for for for for e e for e e e e e e for e for for e for e e for for for for e e e e for for e e e we'll use it for thrusters to perform a deorbit burn which will put dragon on a trajectory to return to Earth and our splash down location at Dr toruga off the Florida Keys this will burn this burn will last about 7 minutes once it starts and to prepare for these upcoming events Dragon SpaceX we do have a tedris Handover around claw and trunk sep so I'll make sure to formalize all calls after the tedris Handover this is in about 5 minutes yeah copy that SPX we're tracking and just some CMS there from the ground to the crew to let them know that during the tedious Handover we will lose some communication so they're just uh informing them ahead of time and they'll make sure that they'll uh communicate the comms um after they gain Communications back with the crew so to prepare for these upcoming events right now Dragon capsule is doing a couple of things autonomously one of these steps includes isolating the thermal control system fluid Loops from the radiator this system is what will help keep the internal temperature of dragon temperate for the orbit sequence start Space X re the SE and great news the diorit sequence has begun again this system is what will keep the internal temp the internal temperature of dragon temperate for the crew during re-entry dragon is also initiating separation of the claw mechanism which will terminate data power and fluid connections between the capsule and the trunk so that's a pretty exciting Milestone basically we have the trunk attached Dragon for the duration of the mission that provides power to the Dragon capsule and the crew um but once it's separated now they're they're going to be ready to come back home back down to earth yeah and all of these kind of while they are choreographed and spaced out they happen quite quickly so I'm sure that the crew on board Dragon you know they've been in orbit for 5 days now uh it's going to go by in a blink of an eye for them most likely and they'll be back here on planet Earth um now some uh information about Dragon for those who have not tuned into our Dragon missions previously um from the beginning SpaceX designed the spacecraft for human space flight uh while it can carry up to seven passengers right now it's only carrying four um and it is the first private spacecraft to take humans to the International Space Station in fact this exact capsule that our Polaris Dawn crew is flying in first went to uh or its first mission was the crew One mission uh and it went to the International Space Station oh and look our first views of the crew uh this morning inside Dragon resilience um on your far left side of the screen is Mission specialist uh Anna uh Menan she is also the medical officer on board for this Mission uh to her left or our right is our pilot Scott kid potit to the right of kid is Jared isaacman he is the commander of the polaron mission and on the far right side at the other window seat is other Miss specialist Sarah Gillis uh both Anna and Sarah are our SpaceX co-workers and it's been such a joy to watch them experience space flight um through their eyes as uh SpaceX employees who in their uh day job have helped train other astronauts for their human space flight missions and so it's just so incredible to see Sarah and Anna now having their own uh space flight yeah I still can't believe it you know we got to see and talk to them this morning um and it was just so cool to see our space xers on the other side floating in space and I love the space hair that was probably my favorite part oh of course um so we are anticipating uh our Polaris Dawn crew to return and splash down um about 12:36 a.m. Pacific Time or 3:36 a.m. eastern time uh and they are splashing down off the coast of Florida uh and we're very much looking forward to getting them home uh I H have ordered a copy of Anna's book and I will definitely be asking her to sign it when she gets back oh I definitely ordered one as well SpaceX nominal trunk jedison copy that SpaceX we show the same and F the same all right good news there uh we just heard that the trunk has uh been jettisoned or separated uh which is great news uh like we were saying before we had to basically uh unconnect with the trunk in order to expose the heat shield which is the um the the the most important thing when it comes to re-entering the Earth's atmosphere um and we're doing that trunk separation now so that the trunk and the capsule don't return together in um the same trajectory so uh good news there that the trunk is now jettisoned yeah exactly so that means that Telemetry is looking good the nitrox system is primed for cabin and suit Cooling and again the heat shield is exposed and ready for atmospheric re entry now Dragon will slew or what we call maneuver itself into the correct position to deorbit uh to do the deorbit burn here in just a few minutes now for the deorbit burn this is the last time that the forward Draco which are the four thrusters located on top of the vehicle will ignite the deorbit burn will place dragon on a precise trajectory to return to the splash down Zone off Dry Tortugas in the Florida Keys and will last about 7 minutes long drugas is a new Landing location for dragon that our teams activated in a couple weeks uh just prior to the polaron missions launch earlier uh this is the first time that we will be returning dragon to the dry toruga splash down site which is pretty exciting I was personally very excited to hear this because I did a uh presentation about uh druga National Park when I was in Middle School so um I know exactly where they were going when I heard the name full circle moment there indeed uh so we were talking a little bit about the different Burns that the Dragon capsule does in orbit in order to uh deorbit and return to Earth safely um There are 16 Draco thrusters used to orient the spacecraft throughout the mission including apogee and perige Maneuvers um as well as orbit adjustments and attitude control for the Dior burn uh that only fires four of the Draco thrusters on the perimeter of the nose cone uh basically located around the sky All In Action during the Eva um and it was incredible to see that but it's those four Draco thrusters that we saw there um that are basically going to be doing all of the work for this deorbit burn uh each Draco Thruster is capable of generating 90 pounds of force in the vacuum of space uh and it's pretty cool uh to to see them in action we actually saw some video captured while they were doing some orbital adjustments uh earlier in the week posted to X that I just thought were so cool because you you also got to see some Earthly lights uh from the ground in the background as well oh yeah the views from this Mission were incredible we got to see a lot of things that we've never seen before especially with the the um Skywalker at the top of dragon um that's the same location as where those four Draco thrusters are but just a new Mobility week indeed it has been a long week that is for sure it seemed like every day there was action uh happening and we're super excited that um they're going to be coming back soon and share more of their experience with us when they're on the ground um once again this view is looking in side of dragon resilience it is making its excuse me making its way back to Earth um we can see some minor movements there with the straps uh and uh still floating around yeah uh so they're um they're making their their way back to Earth again they are going to be splashing down off the coast of Florida we anticipate that splash down around uh 3:36 a.m. eastern time uh there are a couple of events that are uh still coming up um we're going to close the nose cone um that will help protect the forward hatch during re-entry um and it also means that we will not be using the forward uh forward bulkhead Draco thrusters any longer um basically this deorbit burn is the last time that um those will be utilized yeah and we are expecting that deorbit burn any minute now um and again that's going to help put dragon on the trajectory towards the splash down Zone and again as a reminder they are still currently in space in orbit um and have not re-entered the Earth's atmosphere just yet that's what this deorbit burn is going to help them uh adjust to that trajectory and then they will perform the entry burn or entry of dragon back into Earth's atmosphere clearly Anna is savoring the last few minutes of her micrograph experience and that uh deorbit burn is in progress uh it's about a 7 minute burn once again this helps to put the Dragon capsule uh into the correct uh in in into the correct uh trajectory uh for its Landing this deorbit burn is the last time that we use those four forward Draco thrusters uh for this mission yeah and again dragon has not entered Earth's atmosphere just yet this deorbit burn is what lines the vehicle up and puts it on its final trajectory to The Landing site near drugas off the Florida Keys now right now the crew are using their screens to keep tabs on the burn duration Draco Thruster firings and trajectory details like entry angle capsule parag velocity and how much time remains until the deorbit deorbit burn termination that's uh because they they want to monitor this because they they are going to hear a lot of different sounds with the burns going on so dragon is currently flying free itself and so all the crew has to do is stay strapped into their seats and keep an eye on things and there you can see the screen and some cool new uh stickers there great Scott I love that I love to see how they uh add their own personality like just right there in the middle that 1.21 GW obviously referring to Back to the Future um it is it is worth noting that uh dra excuse me that Jared has actually flown in this capsule in the commander seat once before as he was the commander of the inspiration 4 Mission uh just a quick note here these are those Draco thrusters at the forward bulkhead as well as the Skywalker Mobility Aid that we saw tested out during the extra vehicle ular activity or Eva it seems almost sad and heartbreaking to not see you know a person hanging out there uh those views were just so incredible that seeing an empty empty forward hatch just you know we we'll come back we'll come back we'll do it again um but what an incredible Space Walk we had earlier this week and just some cool views that we had there um um from the nose cone looking uh back down on Earth and again as we mentioned the crew is using their displays just to monitor dragon is fully autonomous um so it's it's doing all these Maneuvers uh on its own um and the crew is just you know watching monitoring making sure they they know when uh the burn uh is going and when it's going to conclude and how much time is left um and we do just have a few more minutes again this deorbit burn they're currently in the deorbit burn and this burn should last just about uh 7 minutes and we're about halfway through at this point I love this view here um BEC so just for a little bit of frame of reference on the left side of the screen is Commander Jared isaacman and the right hand side of the screen is pilot Scott potit although he prefers to go by his call sign kid uh and I think that this is such a great view because it it it really gives you an idea of what they are looking at in addition to the tablets that they have strapped onto their legs you can see the procedures that they are following along with as well as the the display that illustrates which Draco are firing at what point now this deorbit burn is still underway uh I'm going to pull up the map real quick but it looks like that might be Australia yeah according to our Dragon tracker that is the West Coast of Australia it's so cool almost to see the difference uh if you watched you know earlier this week they made it over 1,400 km away from Earth they got a nice round view of the globe um and now you can see that they're much closer to Earth um with just a a very small SLI of slice of Earth that they could see in that view we can see the straps still floating now if you're uh curious as to where Dragon is you can of course follow Dragon yourself we have it on our website spacex.com slf follow Dash dragon and it shows you exactly where uh dragon is along its path oh and there's both and you can see how fast they will move as they will be splashing down off the coast of Florida um and they're just passing by Australia right now um we do expect splash down um to happen in about 30 minutes or so now that's a nice way to travel really fast I'd like to take one of these next time I go on an international flight definitely and just such great clear views this is this is a a nice treat for us to be able to see this and we do have just about a minute remaining in this burn again this will be the last burn for these Draco thrusters uh at the forward bulk head and once this is complete then we can close the no nose cone um we do close the nose cone in preparation for re-entry um that helps uh allow us to reuse the capsule makes reusable a lot easier when you can open and close the nose cone uh previous uh dragon designs we did jettison the nose cone now we keep it attached so in preparation for entry we do close and lock that nose cone for those that have just recently tuned in we have successfully separated the trunk from the Dragon capsule uh and the oh these are just such amazing views Dragon SpaceX deorbit burn complete performance nominal nose con closure initiated we show the same and tracking confirmation there that we had a successful and nominal deorbit burn so we're now going to see the nose cone begin its closing uh process it takes a couple minutes for this to fully complete as the I think we can see some Shadows moving here which means that we're about to lose this gorgeous view this is an incredible View and uh as we mentioned earlier the vehicle is doing a slew so it is maneuvering um to orient that heat shield a little bit more towards the Earth uh and that helps prepare us for reentry and we can see that nose cone coming into view now there in the top left corner once it is all the way down is um there will be some hooks that lock in to make sure that it is locked up as Jesse had said earlier once again we will not be using the forward bulkhead Draco thrusters anymore honestly this view is just so cool to see everything that's happening you can still see Earth you've got Dragon maneuvering you've got the nose cone closing and you get to see the Skywalker Mobility Aid Allin one we can see that nose cone coming down to its final position ever so slowly and ever so sadly slow and steady and if you're just joining us welcome here to the Launchpad and our live coverage of the return to Earth for the historic Polaris Dawn Mission we are now just about 45 minutes away from Splashdown and those are those final gorgeous views from Dragon uh of the Earth as hatch closure is in the final steps here prior to locking as the crew prepares to re-enter the Earth's atmosphere if it's your first time here though welcome my name is Zach I'm the founder and host here at the Launchpad Network and here at TLP it's our mission to inform and Inspire the explorers of Tomorrow CU we believe that space is better together and if you haven't yet take a moment engage that like button share the stream let us know where you're watching from in the chat and as always if you guys have questions you can send those in the chat by tagging us at the Launchpad and we'll do our best to to answer those live over the next 45 minutes as we watch Splashdown but make sure to stay with us following Splashdown for full recovery of the crew as we wait to see Jared and the playong crew exit the crew Dragon resilience aboard the recovery ship about 45 minutes to an hour after Splashdown we'll be staying live through all of this right here on YouTube if you haven't yet take a moment and subscribe as well so you never miss another live launch coverage we're just a week or so couple weeks away from the next crew launch of a SpaceX screw dragon with crew 9 up to the International Space Station and then a couple weeks after that Crew 8 return after spending 6 months on board we're going to listen back into SpaceX Mission Control keep sending in those comments and questions share out the stream invite people to join us as we continue to watch history in the making everything cool inside the cabin because as it re-enters the Earth's atmosphere it can get up to about 3500 degrees Fahrenheit which is pretty hot um we've heard some of the the crew members that have flown on dragon that sometimes they can even see some of the Sparks through the window the plasma yeah um so all along for the basically the last day um the the Dragon capsule has been decreasing its altitude beginning with the first two phasing Burns that occurred on Friday um 100 kmers in altitude uh will begin entry interface and at that point that's when the crew begin to feel the effects um of the Earth atmosphere I just love these stickers here it's so great and again the crew is just monitoring they also have their tablets they have the displays um they can follow along with all the procedures that are happening um every single step of the way uh with everything that's happening with the burns with the nose cone uh closing inside of dragon they'll be able to hear some different sounds so being able to follow along with the procedures is really important so that they can uh connect the dots with the sound to the action that is happening outside of the capsule at this point in time we're just standing by to hear confirmation of the nose cones closure once we get that information that basically completes the first half of our deorbit process once again these views live from inside Dragon resilience looking over the shoulders of our commander and pilot Jared isaacman and kid potit and currently they are traveling 17,500 mph while they are still in orbit uh but they will go down to about 350 milph once the drugs deploy um and then the mains the main shoots are actually going to slow the vehicle down so much that by the time that they splash down back on Earth it's only about 15 miles per hour that they'll be going so um those drog shoots and Main shoots uh are pretty important and do a very good job of slowing the vehicle down yeah we uh actually now build our drog parachutes inhouse uh shout out to the Bloomfield team up in Connecticut uh these drug parachutes uh do quite a bit of work and actually if we didn't have drug parachutes we would have to have uh more main parachutes and they would have to be twice as big in order to effectively slow the capsule down um basically the drug parachutes deploy around 18,000 ft when the vehicle is going three about 350 mph and the vehicle thanks to the drugs and the heat shield uh and really just you know the continued friction of the Earth's at mosphere um helps slow it down to 119 mph when the mains deploy at about uh 6,500 ft so it they're um really important pieces of the Dragon capsule and it's always so uh fun to watch them deploy I can only imagine what it would feel like uh to be in the capsule as you you're starting to to to feel Earth again and and then these these things pop out and really slow you down I'm sure it's u a welcome feeling but also kind of a sad one cuz it means they're you know they're really at the very end of their of their space flight yeah uh I'm sure it's probably somewhat similar to sky diving but except they're coming from micro gravity into gravity SpaceX nose cone secure for entry C that all right so there we heard it the nose cone is confirmed to be completely closed and that is great news as we begin the second half of Entry right now dragon is beginning to flush nrocks into the cabin and continuing to top off the cruise suits with that cool air again this is what will allow the cabin temperature to remain comfortable while external temperatures reach 3500 de F the heat shield is pointing forward leading the capsule to The Landing site now while we wait let's talk a little bit about some of the highlights from the week on September 11th the crew hosted a book reading of Anna's book kisses from space the book details a mama dragon's trip to space and the inspiration she draws from her two kids and husband on Earth after her book reading Anna and the entire Polaris daon crew held a Q&A with St Jude patience to answer their questions about space on that same day orbiting Earth on board Dragon the Polaris Dawn crew talked with families and representatives of folds of honor an organization providing educational scholarships to spouses and children of America's fallen and disabled military service members and First Responders and just yesterday the crew connected with Air Force Cadets who helped train them for a week of solo diving excuse me solo skydiving at the United States Air Force Academy in Colorado yeah and it's been a pretty jam-packed week and those were just a couple of events that they you know did while they were on orbit but there's been so many um experiments so many records that they've been able to break they hit the highest apog since the Gemini 11 Mission almost 50 years ago uh they performed the first ever commercial Eva Space Walk they flew and utilized our newly designed Eva space suits which we designed inhouse here at SpaceX so just a lot of exciting stuff such a great Mission um pretty jam-packed and to get all of that in in just 5 days so I'm sure they're probably having a good time being able to relax right now as they come back down to earth yeah it has been an incredible week and while in orbit the Polaris Dawn crew hosted the first ever space to Earth Music Moment uh fellow SpaceX engineer and musician Sarah Gillis performed on a custom violin the primary Melody of Ray theme from Star Wars the Force awakens which of course was composed by the legendary John Williams Sarah was joined by youth mus musicians from around the world all students in the international Ela program excuse me program Starling satellites beamed Sarah's performance from Dragon down to earth and here's how it turned out and if you're just joining us welcome here to the Launchpad and our live coverage of the return to Earth for the historic Polaris Dawn Mission SpaceX is playing a video here that is truly incredible uh with the crew of Polaris Dawn playing with orchestras from around the world raise theme from Star Wars I would love to to play this audio for you but unfortunately it's Star Wars and is very copyrighted uh and we want to be able to stay live for this return to Earth so uh following the launch definitely head over to spacex's feed uh they do have it available there and you can listen in uh is truly beautiful and an incredible cover of raised theme from on board crew Dragon but during this time we're going to answer some of your guys's comments and questions that you're sending in the chat and we're glad to have you all joining us here I know we'll do do some shout outs as well where everyone is tuning in from we got Zone in Kansas City notes is in Mexico we got Ted in Poland white is in white rabbits in Wisconsin great to have you we got mandal broad is watching in their living room great to have you here excuse me we got Ray in New Zealand Raz is in Kent UK we got Raymond in Australia peacock is in Newcastle UK if you haven't yet take a moment let us know in the chat where you're watching from and you can send in those comments and questions there Urban lens is asking where are we Landing today on the right side of your screen that is the re-entry path coming up over Guatemala and the southeasterly tip of Mexico coming down to a brand new dragon Landing site just off the keys of Florida and we're expecting these live views to come in from the WB 57 and not too long and uh we'll have those incredible views here so stay with us uh following this live recording uh notes why would you get a copyright if it's a live recording so it should be all good uh because they still do have under tracking uh of the original theme and it's still a Star Wars property and they're incredibly uh restrictive on it so unfortunately it's it's just not worth the risk for it for us if we get a strike we can't stream for 30 days uh and we've got crew n in two weeks so it's a little important uh we're able to do that om minor this is my first splash down well welcome we're glad that you're here I know I've seen some comments coming in about was it a space walk was it a space step space stand uh you know no matter what it was it was truly historic uh and uh keep in mind you know 10 years ago people were like oh look at SpaceX doing a falcon iron launch not a big deal now they're doing a 100 plus a year uh something notion has ever done so if this was the first space stand space Bend Space Walk whatever you want to call it this way commercially imagine where we're going to be in 10 years time the White Rabbit thanks Zach are he's still based in the UK so still based out of uh or based out of the UK excuse me are you still based in Canada uh I'm yes homebased uh still Canada but I am now station down here on the Space Coast in Florida uh for the coverage of emis 2 and three so excited to be down here uh for that uh as long as we count down to those missions and we'll see what happens afterwards uh oh Miner I've never seen a splash down before I'm from Swindon in England well welcome was in Swindon just a few months ago uh in in town for some conferences there hope to be back in the not too distant future as well uh but yeah we're glad to have you here for your first live splash down we got Mato watching from California click is in India welcome we got uh Stefon in Switzerland and Mike in Vancouver BC Penny's in North Carolina X RP is in Australia uh rot Sky did they actually launch a Stratus violin into space that's epic uh yes they did uh and they filmed that there looks like that recording is done so let's listen back into SpaceX Mission Control keep sending in your comments and questions in the chat and we'll work on answering those live as we continue to countd down the last 32 minutes of this historic Polaris da Mission do exactly what Sarah did with her violin connect multiple locations around the world brought them all together orchestra's incredible an amazing Symphony yeah um uh seeing her do her thing in space is incredible and the fact that um she pulled on her existing Music Experience many of us here um are musicians you know it makes us better engineers at least that's what I always thought about my U music uh education and it's just so cool to Sarah bring that to such a um a massive platform and in such a cool way yeah like I so impressed I literally I was speechless when I first watched it but I think I've watched it like six times by now for sure um so right now we don't have views inside the cabin at the moment but the crew they continue their deorbit Journey um as of right now we have already separated the trunk from the Dragon capsule and that allows us and they've undergone the deorbit burn as well um and separating that Dragon trunk allows us to expose the heat shield and so let's talk a little bit about the heat shield in Greater detail um dragon's primary heat shield is composed of Pika 3.0 which stands for phenolic impregnated carbon ablator the first gen paa was actually developed by NASA for studying and sampling comets within our solar system SpaceX partnered with NASA to develop Pika x with which was the second generation product used on all Dragon 1 CRS missions that successfully resupplied the space station on 20 missions Pika 3.0 was developed specifically for use on Dragon 2 crew and cargo with enhanced structural and thermal properties that optimized the heat shield and drove down cost and mess yeah the remainder of the Dragon capsule is composed primarily of uh a SpaceX proprietary ablative material uh or spam it's another class of thermal protection which is lighter weight than Pika and protects the underlying composite structure during reentry to ensure the structural capabilities are maintained yeah while Dragon will experience temperatures well over 3,000 degrees per Fahrenheit during Peak re-entry conditions the characteristics of the thermal Protection Systems coupled with the environmental Cooling and life support system in the pressurized interior will ensure that the crew will stay cool and comfortable during all phases of re-entry through splash down cuz does get very hot on the outside now we caught up with the inspiration for crew on what they were thinking and feeling about this during their mission coming back home is dynamic it is exciting because you hit the atmosphere like a bullet you're traveling 17,500 mph or mock 25 and then um when you hit the atmosphere the capsule starts slowing down and as a result you get this G load that comes on you quickly and then it's sustained and and at the same time time the dragon's making these giant s turns um which is again dialing into its location but also slowing down the capsule and and for me I was just sitting there like this is fantastic you know that's what was going through my mind yeah and there's that rhythmic pulse of the Draco engines that are steering you and orienting the Dragon capsule in the right direction and that's all you hear until the parachutes deploy you see you see the light change Through the Windows because it is making those S turns and you don't hear the wind go by until you get to about 50 km up and that's when you start to hear the rush of the wind even though you start to feel those G's pretty early and uh what's really cool about it is that as soon as you hear that pop of the the pyrro putting the Drone drug shoots out the Draco go silent and that is an eerie but calm feeling do you remember feeling that when the parachut deployed all of a sudden the Draco just shut off and now we're just there not until you mentioned that GL remember that I know but I just remember the feeling of relief of being like yes the Drug's fired and then the you know and then the mains because Jared had his hands on buttons in case there was something you know we needed it and that's it's a it's a dynamic interesting time of re-entering I'm not going to lie I was nervous for re-entry okay just you know launch I just you're so excited cuz you know 8 nine minutes I'm going to be in space but then re-entry was it was more intimidating for me and um and then it was also just it was more Dynamic it was more intense physically after you'd had no days of zero gravity and then you started experiencing like G's again and then you're up to 4 and 1/2 G's it's really intense you're just trying to breathe and um and when the parachutes come out it sounds explosions it is the Pyro go yeah and then you're waiting and but it's such a relief you're really happy to hear those explosions you really are yeah and um and I just remember when we started entering the atmosphere I could see like fire from the window and um and it was cool but um but whenever we we HD the water it was just it was just intense relief I think one of my favorite moments though is right before you know we're all strapped in and we're working our way to our descent and then that's when Jared was like well I want to give you guys something to look forward to so let me tell you about our splash down party once we get back you a secret he kept it a secret and then and I I kept thinking you're telling us now as we're going into the most like Dynamic part of flight but he just that's Jared he's like let's calm down it's all good and and let's uh share some exciting news to look forward to mhm some awesome words there from the inspiration 4 crew I should say the inspiration 4 crew that isn't currently on board the Polaris Dawn uh capsule so Jared also commanded the inspiration for crew um as well as our current Polaris Dawn Mission and in fact this capsule is the same one that the inspiration for crew flew in as well so that we we heard it from the experts uh re-entry is interesting yeah it was really cool to hear you know their different each one had a different Insight of Haley was you know this was the more Dynamic portion that she was maybe a little bit more worried about and Chris talking about how like the Draco engines go silent just love hearing uh the thoughts uh from that experience yeah now very similar to the inspiration for crew the Polaris Dawn crew did a ton of research while they were on orbit um so many so many science and research uh performed uh about 36 research studies and experiments from 31 partner institutions designed to advance both human health here on Earth during uh as well as in space during long duration space flight um there is a great opportunity for these individuals to um really bring another element of research to uh issues and and health concerns that we have here on Earth and and that's pretty great we have had a full complement of research an actionpack schedule for this Mission we've had about 40 science and research experiments that we have been tackling and they span all sorts of genres and we're really excited to talk to you about a few of them today so right here what you see this is a butterfly ultrasound device and it's really neat because it can work with like an iPhone or an iPad or just any sort of like tablet device and so it's really portable and you can take it anywhere even to space so we've been using it for all a whole bunch of different experiments measuring um our different veins we've been measuring our bladder we've been measuring um our like kidneys and liver and a lot of different pieces of the body so it's been really interesting and we're excited to see what we learn from all the data this was created by the US Air Force Academy which is near and dear to my heart uh I was ass signed there many moons ago as one of the commanders of the cadetes and uh What uh these Cadets have created is a casing that holds uh different plants and we've been Imaging these plants on a daily basis to see what the impact of zero gravity is uh on this uh on this plant one of the big concerns is the the fluid shift up here at zero gravity we can really feel the effect as soon as we were on orbit and you can kind of see it in our faces um so one of the concerns with long duration space flight is to be able to triage in case of an emergency and uh one of the first basic steps is Airway assessment um so we volunteered to uh uh do some Imaging of our Airway we did it uh this experiment before flight during flight and then we'll do it postflight and what this requires is us to uh numb up the nozal P nasal passage um and then insert this endoscopic camera all the way through the nasal passage and and and back of the throat to take these different images um and then postflight will'll be able to assess uh what what uh happened to the airway passage uh as that fluid shifts this is a tempest Pro uh also uh called our ambulance in a box so uh you know if you believe in uh spacex's vision of making life multiplanetary that we're going to have thousands of Starships in space someday tens of thousands of people we on Mars and we're exploring our solar system it's pretty cool but those are some pretty long Journeys and and hospitals aren't very close by so we have to be able to bring diagnostic tools uh into space with us and then be able to beam that information back home to the flight surgeons so just yesterday we hooked up uh all sorts of cables to this so blood pressure spo2 respiration uh EKG leads and basically we're able to capture a number of Vital Signs um and uh and test it out and then today we actually did a full-blown medical simulation of what what could be a very likely uh medical uh you know situation that could develop after an Eva and then was able to beam a lot of this information home via starlink to the flight surgeons in mission control so I really am excited about it because it's this kind of Technology that's going to be needed you know to kind of further humankind's Ambitions to uh explore Among the Stars we've been collecting data kind of every day looking at the changes in our vision over time and space we also have an experiment from CU Boulder that we uh did shortly after arriving on orbit where you actually put a contact lens into your eye to CH monitor the pressure change every time and there's a picture of Jared he has the contact lens in his eye that's sending pressure data over 24 12 24 hours to a sensor um but he really looked like a rogue space pirate with his eye patch kind of covering it so he didn't have to have some vision changes from that lens but it was a it was quite a look up here for the face pirate so cool to see them talk about their different science science experiments and uh if you notice they were like letting go of some of the stuff that they were holding and just floating there chaos but in addition to their science experiments and research experiments that they did on September 12th while traveling in a 184 by 732 km orbit around the Earth the crew performed the first ever commercial spacewalk extra vehicular activities or Evas are activities performed by space suited astronauts outside of their spacecraft in orbit of the earth they are generally performed for service maintenance repair or replacement of space equipment yeah it was so incredible to see this live uh and see them going through and and testing going through their test Matrix for uh the suits um now an extra vehicular activity usually begins with depressurization of the airlock or space module and then ends with repressurization ation of that space module or airlock after crew member Ingress but because crew Dragon doesn't have an airlock the entire cabin was actually depressurized and all four astronauts on board participated in the spacewalk um it was sarahx Dragon our tablets are secure restraints are tightened and our visors are down SpaceX copies for crew entry prep all right good news there uh that was Jared letting us know that uh the their tablets are secured and the visors are down which then creates that complete uh um uh system for the spacit uh for them to basically be ready for the more Dynamic parts of the re-entry phase um which is coming up soon we are um about 7 minutes away from the anticipated loss of signal um but getting back to the incredible spacewalk uh that Sarah and Jared um and kid and Anna uh performed it was actually Sarah and Jared that took turns actually exiting the spacecraft while kid and Anna supported from the inside uh overall the spacewalk lasted 1 hour and 46 minutes from the time that the cabin air was vented to when it was repressurized once again so it was incredible and um the first commercial spacewalk is certainly a moment to remember um now some Dragon facts uh in terms of the Dragon capsule overall like I said earlier uh it's designed from the beginning uh to enable human space flight even though we started just with cargo space flight it can carry up to seven passengers but for today we've got four crew members on board and it is the first private spacecraft to take humans to the International Space Station it's also the first private spacecraft to take an all civilian crew to orbit uh and that was this exact Dragon capsule Dragon resilience that of course was the inspiration for Mission this dragon Mission uh this Polaris Dawn track dragon mission flew further than any dragon to date and reached the highest Earth orbit ever flown with an apogee of 1, 148.16156210 25 missions utilizing a reown or a refurbished Dragon capsule including Polaris daon and like we mentioned earlier this is the exact same Dragon flown on the inspiration 4 Mission Dragon SpaceX 5 minutes until predicted com blackout see you on the other side Cy that SpaceX we're tracking the same talk to you soon and we just heard some calms from the core to the crew letting them know we're just about 5 minutes away from that blackout period um which is very very exciting that means that the crew is almost going to get through the portion of passing through the atmosphere um re-entering the atmosphere coming back down to earth um and ironically today is actually the 3year anniversary 3 years years ago today uh on September 15th 2021 uh the inspiration 4 Mission actually launched uh and so we got to hear some thoughts we don't get to hear the player Stone crew they haven't gone through this re-entry period so we got to hear some thoughts from the inspiration for crew on their thoughts of this re-entry period it's now time to come home we've been floating in space for 3 days what did it feel like to you guys to all of a sudden experience a tenth of a g as we came back okay you said that liftoff was your favorite part coming back was actually mine I loved hitting the atmosphere and the Dynamics of it and having the the g-load you know come on quick and you're like okay you know gravity is heavy you I know prer launch um over splash down but yeah I um cuz you know we were in space for 3 days and this is something I didn't think about um before but whenever we started entering the atmosphere and started feeling the gravity again I remember saying out loud oh my gosh this is so intense how many G's are we at and Jared said 0.3 so we were at a third of Earth gravity and I was like how we're going to get to four and a half but you just you just get through it yeah just keep breathing right and then you just you just pray the parachutes will open and then whenever they do and then you hear from SpaceX 4 healthy mans I remember screaming thank god well that's the most intense you know when they talk about the dragon being autonomous and stuff um you know on Ascend going up if the launch Escape system will probably catch an error before Jared and I could react you know we could do stuff but you've got that but coming back um coming back come back you can't you know and but the most intense moment I think for the commander and the pilot is making sure that the drugs in the mains come out because we have a short window where we can manually fire them if they don't and and I just remember you know we're counting down and then I'm like yeah I'm like green yellow and if I'd gotten to Red then that wouldn't have been good um but every time green happened the pyrro went and Jared and I were just like there's the drugs and then and we could see it on our monitor I don't know if you could but we're like oh yes drugs and then we go through I had rip off my iPad to hand it to you so you pict take a picture once we got off yeah because once we got off the four healthy Main Jared was like that's the best thing I've ever seen and I was like yes yeah and then it was like at that point it was so peaceful cuz cuz reentry was very Dynamic it was the g-forces were so intense it was more shaky than launch was and then when the parachutes deploy that they've lift you up and um shake you all around and then whenever after they're out then you're just kind of falling down I remember it sounded like a Summer Breeze outside and we were like in oneg and uh just drifting down and then we hit the water we knew it it well that was one thing too when you said you're looking at the screens you and I had a pretty good view of Haley of weet we could actually look out the windows at that point and I remember seeing that the Dragon capsule reorient and as it's making those SC curves to the atmosphere and seeing the clouds move very dynamically see I love that that to me hearing the dra goes firing and the you know it's like as we're doing this giant S curves it sounded like yeah it's like ingrained in my memory and I'm like and I remember just being there and being like this is so cool you know and just the technology of what SpaceX has done and being able to you know have a a capsule that will dial itself in and and slow down your descent uh it's just amazing such a great experience but splash down was awesome because when we hit the water you're just like we did it it was a very emotional moment more than I expected I love what Dr Proctor said there we did it yeah I love I literally love seeing all the reactions because you know we don't get to you know experience these events with them um and every single one is very unique to each person's experience and I love that all three of them have just like a different view of how each event went yeah that it's um it's so great to be able to hear their reactions uh and I look forward to hearing the Polaris Don crew reactions uh when once they get back on Earth and share their experience with us uh now the polar on crew we are coming up to our anticipated loss of signal um this is the point in time in which the amount of plasma building up on the exterior of the vehicle becomes significant and that we are unable to um command the vehicle or receive Telemetry uh or communicate with the crew so this happens every time a Dragon capsule comes back through the Earth's atmosphere and we're anticipating about a 7-minute uh loss of signal for for for today's re-entry um but it's um a period in which we a couple minutes before it ends we'll hear the core call out uh the core being the crew oper operations and resources engineer uh and that person is the voice to the crew and they're sitting right there in that room on your screen that is Mission Control here at SpaceX in Hawthorne California uh and couple minutes before the uh blackout period ends we'll we'll start to hear the core uh hail the Dragon capsule because sometimes they get through it quicker and we're able to communicate uh earlier than anticipated so yeah it's an expected period where basically no vehicle Telemetry is received um by michig control or the recovery team uh and were unable to command the vehicle so um as as a reminder though the Dragon capsule is programmed to and designed to fly itself so uh as we heard from the inspiration 4 crew earlier uh it is a period of great anticipation but coming out on the other side is a is a moment of um a lot of Joy yeah it's super exciting um we are expected to be in the blackout period at this moment we did hear the call the core call that out about 5 minutes ago um so we should be in that blackout period again should last about 6 seven minutes um and what's expected to come next is going to be once we get through that blackout period we will confirm we have uh comms with the crew once again um and then we will be expecting the drug parachutes to deploy again that helps slow the vehicle down they've been flying very fast in space at 17,500 milph those drugs are going to slow down the vehicle to about 350 mil hour and then the four main parachutes will deploy and slow the vehicle down as it's making its way back down to earth and should touch down at you know around 15 16 milph so these shoots are very very important to help keep the vehicle slowly um moving towards the Earth scrubbing that velocity uh as they've been moving very quickly um but they should have a very light touchdown back on Earth uh in the ocean uh you can hear a bit a little bit of a crowd here forming outside of Mission Control you can see there on your screen as uh some of our fellow employees are gathering in anticipation of the splash down it's always one of the best not one of the best place to stand um for these types of events although it is uh pretty late on a Saturday night so perhaps not the normal size crowd this is a you know this is a pretty good event for a Saturday night I think this is where I'd want to be so once again uh we are uh in the uh black period blackout period um anticipating loss of communications we do anticipate to regain those Communications around 12:30 a.m. uh Pacific Time or 3:30 a.m. eastern time just after that as Jesse was saying we'll uh see the drug parachutes deploy about 2 minutes uh after and then about 2 minutes after coming back from the blackout period we'll see those drugs deploy and then just a a minute later we'll see the main parachutes deploy so as as we said earlier this is a series of events that uh when you start it seems like oh man it's going to take a while but they do happen in Rapid succession uh and I just noticed there's a um a turtle inflatable down in front of Mission Control in celebration of our new Landing location uh at uh Dry Tortugas yeah I love that celebrating our new splash down Zone welcoming the player Don crew home um and we are a little over halfway through that blackout period we are expecting to hopefully game coms back uh in about a couple minutes from now again and this you can see on your screen is the first ground view of the Dragon capsule making its way back entering the Earth's atmosphere I love this view uh it's a it's it's so fun to watch this I can only imagine what it would be like to watch it with our own eyes um this thermal view uh in particular is really cool because you can you can see the trail behind it oh that is so awesome there's four humans inside of that capsule right now now once again we are in the anticipated Communications blackout period um basically there is an envelope of ionized air around the spacecraft and it blocks radio signals from reaching Dragon so this basically plasma field around it prohibits us from commanding the vehicle or from communicating with the crew uh so this anticipated blackout period lasts about 7 minutes so uh we should be coming out of it here in about the next minute or so we will probably start to hear uh the SpaceX core begin to reach out to the Dragon capsule uh just trying to hail them or we might even hear from uh the polaron crew first oh that's an incredible view from the recovery ship uh stationed out in the water that is a sight to see for the people that are watching this live it's not a comet it is just the player Don crew coming back to Earth wow that is an amazing view once again we expect this uh blackout period to end in about a minute another view of the Dragon SpaceX com check has you loud and clear how space loud and clear Jared expect automated shoot deployment incredible views incredible comms we have regained Communications with the polaron crew this is a drone circling the recovery vessel and that little white dot I should sry the big white dot on the right obviously the moon the little white dot there in the center of your screen is the dragon resilience vehicle making its way its final few kilometers back down to planet Earth after spending 5 days in orbit wow just some epic views tonight you can hear the crowd here in Hawthorne getting excited we've confirmed that we have comms with the crew Dragon SpaceX GPS converged expect nominal altitude for Dro shoot deoy Cy that SpaceX we show the same in tracking the crew is still traveling very quickly right now as they're coming back through the Earth's atmosphere but as you heard the drug shoots should be deploying here shortly and that's going to slow them down significantly yeah we we expect those to deploy in about 90 seconds and as we heard in those comms it's triggered by GPS so the Dragon capsule using the um that that GPS will automatically know exactly when to deploy it and that happens around 40 kilomet once the drog parachutes deploy about a minute after that we'll see the main parachutes and it's pretty incredible that we only uh we can see seat rotation now underway this helps put the crew in a uh more ergonomic position in anticipation of Dr window copy we're braon should see those shoots deploy here shortly and you can see the crew bracing as instructed for the change in velocity standing by for deployment of the drog parachutes these will help bring the vehicle down from about 350 mph when they deploy down to about 119 mil per hour when the main parachutes deploy there we can see that the droke shoots have successfully deployed it's a great thermal image and that view is from the actual Basin where those drog parachutes are located Dragon SpaceX visual on two healthy drugs stop that SpaceX we show the same these Dro parachutes help to stabilize the Dragon capsule and get it into the right orientation before those main parachutes uh pop out as well as providing that initial deceleration this is such a great thermal shot of the the Dragon capsule you can see it turning a little bit with the drug parachutes and there are the four main shoots now deployed they'll slowly open up to their full uh deployment here in just a few seconds incredible views of the Polaris Dawn crew returning to Earth after 5 days in Earth's orbit the crowd here at Mission Control in Hawthorne cheering on four Mains and descent rate nominal it's a beautiful sight to see space actually show the same 1000 Cy 1000 beautiful sight to see those four healthy main parachutes so great now in about 2 minutes we expect our splash down to occur and you may hear the crew in the core talking they're uh communicating about their altitude as they make their way back down to earth we should start yeah there is so we should start to hear an our hearing uh our commander Jared isaacman call out the altitude as they descend to the ocean's surface we can see the Polaris Dawn crew nestled in their seats there on the left hand side of your screen as they anticipate their spash down CB six you can see the difference in velocity this is a lot gentler than just a few minutes ago that dragon is coming back down to earth absolutely these main parachutes deploy at about 119 miles per hour and help slow the Dragon capsule down to about 15 mph when it makes contact with the ocean can also see that the capsule is down the capsule is now stabilized it's no longer spinning like we saw it with the drug parachutes 200 we're bracing copy 200 embraced Racing for splash down that will be the final call we hear from Jared until contact with the ocean surface standing by for a splash down of the polaron crew and there you can see this cop as you can see on your screen and by the cheers behind us the Polaris Dawn crew has successfully splashed down welcome back to planet Earth pois Dawn SpaceX recovery team now moving into place to begin the process of strapping the Dragon capsule up with the necessary uh rigging in order to lift it onto the recovery vessel Dragon capsule appears to be in a pretty stable uh position after space Dragon Vehicles code one Cru code one space copies code one now the recover teams have been ready and waiting about three nautical miles away so it's going to take them just about 30 minutes to make their way to Jared kid Sarah and Anna who are currently inside of the Dragon capsule that you see there on your screen back here home on Earth that and if you're just joining us welcome here to the Launchpad you are looking at a live view of crew Dragon resilience back down on Earth currently floating in the Gulf of Mexico bringing the Polaris Dawn crew home uh and bringing the end to an incredible historic Mission now this isn't it we're not done yet we are going to be staying live through full crew recovery uh we're going to be watching the recovery ship approach over the next about 20 30 minutes Dragon will be scooped out of the Gulf of Mex meico and then it'll be moved into a position where we will actually get to see all four of the player ston crew depart their spacecraft as they come home and go into First Med checks before heading back to port and then heading home to their crew uh and their families but we're going to be staying live through all of this we're continuing to answer your questions you can keep sending those in the chat if you haven't yet take a moment engage that subscribe button so you never miss another live launch coverage docking undocking or returned Earth coverage we getting to do this all over again in two weeks with the launch of crew 9 and the return of SpaceX Crew 8 uh with two more crew dragons it's going to be amazing we will see three crew dragons fly in a singular month uh that is a new record for SpaceX they only have four uh and that last one is getting ready to fly November December with the Fram 2 mission so a very busy end of the year for the crew Dragon program and you can catch that all live right here on the Launchpad network is here at TLP it's our mission to inform and Inspire the explorers of tomorrow cuz we believe that space is better together quick programming note we will have live coverage of the h2a launch out of Japan currently targeting 1:24 a.m. eastern on Monday we've got a uh commercial mission of FM 26 FM 32 launching on a falcon 9 Monday evening targeting 6:55 p.m. we got rocket lab launching just about 7 minutes later on Monday out of New Zealand we'll have coverage of that and starlink 9-17 launching from California on Wednesday at 10:20 a.m. eastern time if you want to stay up to date on the latest of the launch Calendar head over to TLP network.com launches and you can also follow along here on the Launchpad YouTube channel we try to live pre-schedule uh most of our launch coverage so make sure you stay tuned and have that notification Bell turned on we're going to listen back into SpaceX mission control as recovery operations are underway stay with us as we wait to have those first views back of the poone crew back on the recovery ship stay with us he has a couple uh recovery folks on board they've got the go to do those uh you know gas and hazardous checks to make sure that Dragon uh is safe for the recovery vessel to approach yeah and this view here is actually from a drone hovering near the Dragon capsule so it gives you you a little bit better perspective of how close the fast boats are like I mentioned before some of them are uh scouring the water looking for the parachutes that were released after Dragon splashed down we'll try to retrieve those uh and another fast boat will approach and begin those safety checks for any hypergolic Vapors uh and yeah we can see them getting oh actually you can kind of see one of those parachutes there floating in the water to the right hand side and then the moon in the distance what a great view some great lighting from the moon at this light this uh night uh splash down tonight I'm pretty sure this is uh the first time we've had these views on our recovery webcasts so it's pretty cool to see I love I love that we get this this view right here where we can see the the lights on inside Dragon capsule Through the Windows looks like the eyes of dragon yeah that's pretty cool so the fast boat that is closest to the Dragon capsule uh that is the crew that will begin yeah you can see with the stick there that is basically a hypergolic um uh detection device uh and yeah they will attach to the Dragon capsule to get a little closer uh and we can see that they have respirators on this helps ensure that if there are any lingering Vapors that uh they will not be exposed to those now the recovery team just like the Polaris Dawn crew uh they perform quite a bit of training in order to be able to perform these activities safely in fact H if for those of you that have never watched our recovery um shows before but there will actually be someone that jumps into the water and begins climbing on Dragon capsule in order to secure the straps that are necessary to lift the the Dragon capsule out of the water well there's a cool shot there because you can actually see the Basin where the main parachutes were located that's where um the the oh here's a thermal view now but yeah that lower larger Basin is where the main parachutes were located a Dragon capsule definitely looks toasty having come back through the Earth's atmosphere a little bit toasty there was a little hot coming back yeah and again right now the recovery team is ensuring the safety of the crew um making sure there's no hazardous gases around the vehicle they're pulling the shoots out of the water which is what that thing is below the Dragon capsule there on the bottom right hand side of your screen it is not a giant squid I love how there are lights on these boats uh maybe not there actually I take that back I don't think it's lights on the boats I think it's lights with some of um Dragon SpaceX hyper golf sweeps and unfired ordinance checks nominal rigging in progress approximately 2 five minutes until capsule lift standby for PMC copy that two five minutes for capsule list and glad all the checkouts are de all right great news there um letting us know and we can see that the crew members have uh basically taken off their respirators allows them to work a little bit more efficiently uh also heard that the crew will have their Dragon SpaceX for PMC PMC standing for private medical conference so this is an opportunity to check in with I would' like to try and do the PMC in 10 minutes one Z minutes looking for crew to be okay with that weight crw is good we'll call you if we need to pull it in but right now one Z minutes seems good copy all right so that PMC private medical conference that's just not on board to have that occur in 10 minutes meanwhile the recovery teams here on your screen scurrying oh there we our first view of the individual on top of the capsule uh yeah we I have said this in many Splashdown webcasts before not enough money in the world to convince me to do that job I have so much admiration and respect for the people that can uh just doing that in Dark Water would be terrifying to me and I love how efficient and well-trained all of these individuals are they you we can see it in action here they they function as a a really strong unit altogether um even in I mean these waters are pretty calm but you can see the capsule and the boats kind of moving around um and and it's it's not like they're on land yeah and yeah Kate I mean at least they are in near the Florida Keys uh they probably got some pretty clear water even though it is nighttime uh I wouldn't mind you know jumping on top of the capsule trying to to rig up the Dragon capsule there looks like a pretty fun job actually yeah I think I nighttime would be a hard no daytime maybe Dragon SpaceX for PMC go SpaceX all right we're actually ready to do a PMC now so I'm going to be privatizing draging to ground you'll next hear from the ship surgeon e so cool to see this happening live with the various recovery team members working to install the straps and the rigging that is necessary in order to uh in order to safely lift the Dragon capsule out of the water um I want to give a special shout out to the SpaceX weather team and the recovery team for unlocking this location and adding it to uh our our sites of availability for Dragon recovery opportunities and and options because um as we saw trying to launch this Mission um when we originally when we were oh just kidding fake quor um when we were trying to launch this weather was really problematic and it wasn't just the weather at the launch site which is what most dragon ground is no longer privatized yeah the the weather at the launch site is what most people think of um but when we have a shorter duration uh basically free flyer type Mission like this where the Dragon capsule is only in orbit for a few days not only do we have to look at the immediate weather around the launch site and the weather during the ascent abort uh phases like we always do but at the time of launch we also have to be really confident that there will be good weather in the at least a hand a couple of landing locations um available to us at the time of launch and there that wasn't an option for any of our existing sites and the recovery team and the weather team worked really hard to identify this new location and just look how calm the waters are wow it was perfect for this splash down tonight and yeah Kate like for the last few weeks um weather you know in Florida is you know it's the hurricane season so it's a little bit tough um and like you said you know 5 days trying to make sure that weather is good from start to finish is really really difficult with that type of weather there in Florida where typically you know other missions we've gone gone to the International Space Station where we can kind of wait out weather if we need to um for a mission like the free flyer like you said uh that's a little bit harder yeah we don't have as much cargo space to uh keep you know food and supplies um much longer than the planned duration of the mission obviously there's some um extra in there in case they did need to stay out in space but we got some some excellent weather for this and a big shout out to Starling we've got this view here brought to you by starlink and we're now seeing the recovery V getting closer and closer to the Dragon capsule uh this is where the Dragon capsule is going to be lifted out of the water onto this recovery vessel a great shot of the helicopter P there on top that's pretty cool so a helicopter is going to come once the crew is on board once the capsule's on board the crew's on board um and has exited the Dragon capsule a helicopter is going to come land on the recovery vessel and actually fly the crew back to land that's a lot faster path than waiting on the recovery vessel to get back to land um and that's important to make sure that the crew is safe healthy and they can get into um hopefully get get some sleep maybe yeah um I did make a note that the crew um you know while they are on orbit everything is scheduled including their sleep periods uh and they actually had their wakeup call at 6:25 p.m. Pacific time uh or 9:20 5 p.m. eastern time so it's right now almost 1:00 a.m. Pacific time so yeah they've been awake for a while and they had quite quite quite a day honestly and I'm sure that they are most excited to see their families again and also probably pretty excited to get a good night's sleep in a bed yeah instead of floating around yeah now if you've recently joined us uh unfortunately you missed um quite a bit of action already but we still have a bit to go uh so far we as you can see have had a successful splash down of the Dragon capsule carrying the Polaris Dawn crew they splashed down about 12:36 a.m. Pacific time uh unfortunately I I uh was too excited and I didn't catch the exact splash down time but I think it was right around then um and that is now uh the recovery of the cup of the capsule is now underway this view is um of the recovery team in one of those fast boats we can see some of the recovery crew members working to uh place the straps in the rigging around the capsule that that will be used excuse me to lift the Dragon capsule out of the water and onto the recovery vessel and uh from there the crew members will will excuse me the recovery team members will open up the side hatch and uh that will be the first breath of fresh air that this crew has had since they lift it off uh let's see 5 days ago man this week has been such a blur I guess that was Monday night I I think a Monday night for us yes yeah okay thank you uh so yeah it's been it's been quite a few days and once that hatchet is open we will then bring each crew member out one at a time uh they will then head up to the medical deck and have uh an in-person checkout with the flight surgeon uh or ex the the flight surgeon that is on the ship so the ship surgeon and yeah from there they'll get to get on that helicopter that you mentioned yeah and the uh flight surgeon will be the first to greet the crew once that hatch is open um and they'll help the the recovery team um and crew will help them exit the Dragon capsule if they need to um and we actually you know again three years ago today the inspiration 4 crew lifted off and did their three-day mission in space so we'll get to hear some of their thoughts on what that was like exiting the capsule for the first time coming back down to earth it was a really kind of a Bittersweet time like we knew we had just completed all these different milestones we had done all that research um and I know polaron they have so much more research they're going to get through but we had just gotten down into the water and now we're just sitting there waiting and waiting um to come out and then go on to the next thing right and how do we take this story how do we take this experience and share it with everybody that's been experiencing it with us which they were they were they were watching us the entire time which I think was amazing we we had so many people donate to St Jude uh during our flight uh that was one of the most incredible things to learn about yeah later that night after splash down right when we found out we surpassed our $200 million fundraising goal I remember I just couldn't stop crying I was just so happy and I love the fact that you know our families heard the Sonic Boom of Us coming home it's like we announced here we come I'm glad they knew that was a good thing that's right um but my my brother you know Hayden is an airspace engineer he was like yeah he was so excited to hear that he knew exactly what it was and we were the first uh SpaceX crew to splash down in the Atlantic so we were the first crew to cause a sonic boom back over Florida since the shuttle stopped flying yeah I know such a special moment you know and I just remember getting back onto to the boat and you know the and then working on opening up the side hatch for the first time and an Neil being there to welcome us and I home Earthling I'll never forget and I just I think about the fact that you know and Neil is got to greet us and now he's a Nas astronaut and the fact that Anna gets to go and have that experience and during all of this she was with our families she was supporting them and um all of them were supporting our mission so Sarah was in Mission Control she was chatting with us for launch and in space and you know she had trained us to that point and then kid was one of the first faces that we saw back on Earth he had been there every step of the way and um with fried chicken with fried chicken I was I was ready for some Earth food when I got back I thought that was funny cuz you were like fried chicken I just remember you and you're kind of like hanging out of our mouths I there's this photo and um you know I'm still like getting used to gravity again which we had been there 3 days I didn't think it'd be such a Readjustment but I'm laying on the stretcher I've been eating fried chicken and it's all over me and I didn't even sit up I was like I don't care I'm so happy I remember an Neil coming in and being like you know to get help us get out of our our suit well out of our seats and thinking I've got this I've got to be like you know this is going to be my my Phoenix Rising moment coming off of the spacecraft what were you thinking when you first got up on the land and well it was onto the boat and the camera's there and you're standing I I know I felt like I wanted to have a good show as well and but the problem I had was that the boat started rocking and now all of a sudden I'm unsteady and so I look like this you know this kind of elephant who's learning how to walk for the first time uh but it yeah I was really excited to to be back and to go see everyone and share the story and I felt great I felt awesome and I looked at you guys coming out too and you were strutting your way on to the the next section and and then Jared of course followed behind me oh yeah Jared was last out he Jared always let us go first y ladies first yep love hearing the inspiration for uh memories really of their own space flight Mission uh I I'm sure that this second time around for Jared will feel a little bit different he um you know had flown on the inspiration 4 Mission as they were mentioning and oh here this is uh uh a cool view because we we can we can start to see how close the recovery vessel is to the Dragon capsule we still have the fastboat there working to install the uh straps that are required to lift the vehicle into that Nest that you see there on your screen so that on arm will actually extend out over the water and that will is what will lift the Dragon capsule up and into that Nest there at the end that Nest will then translate to the forward end of the boat or exuse me the recovery vessel and that's where we'll let them hang out while we open up the side hatch oh wow that is just an incredible view some great lights some clear water clear skies we got the moon yeah the moon in the background and all brought to you by starlink I loved hearing that uh Haley's first thing coming out of the capsule was eating fried chicken be advised transitioning forward link Comm will be unavailable for a little less than 5 minutes yeah getting some fried chicken Fresh Off The Dragon capsule um and also another cool full circle moment with a that is Anna men's husband uh was the flight surgeon that greeted the inspiration for crew which is really cool um and now Anna has completed her mission in space um just so cool to to see that full ciral moment again I I can't believe this is all happening on the same day that the inspiration for launched three years ago that's pretty cool yes so we can we can start to see the recovery team getting closer to the dragon caps one of the fast boats there in the background um as well as the capsule itself coming into view um this arm or excuse me this Arch rather that you see in a perfectly vertical position that will actually extend out to about 45° or so uh and it will happen quite quickly basically once all of the straps are in place and secure and tight the uh that arm will extend you can see uh a protective buoy there at the end of The Vessel to help make sure that nothing comes into contact with the Dragon capsule but once those straps are attached and that arm uh that that hydraulic Arch is extended out um the Dragon capsule will actually be lifted up and out of the water pretty efficiently and uh placed into that circular basket looking thing or what we we call it a nest and that is basically the The Landing point for the Dragon capsule you can see it has a a bit of a concave shape to help support the similarly concave shaped uh uh heat shield at the bottom of the Dragon capsule and once the Dragon capsule is in the Dragon Nest it will translate um and move forward towards the um front of the boat actually more towards the middle of the boat to a platform um as you probably can see on the Dragon capsule the hatch is about in the middle of the Dragon capsule um so there is a platform for when they open up that hatch that it is very easy to exit the capsule um to the platform now while we can't see the crew themselves they are remaining in their seats and strapped in with their safety harnesses but at this point in time they are they have opened up their visor excuse me as the dynamic portion of flight has concluded we do continue to flow some cooled nitrox or nitrogen oxygen air mixture in through their suits to help keep them uh comfortable during this phase but they are also at this point in time allowed to retrieve uh their water bottles which had previously been stored for re-entry so uh yeah they're able to stay cool and hydrated and just hang out and uh and enjoy um the the last few minutes within their their their home for the last five days they've done a lot of great work this week so they get a little bit of time to relax and patiently wait as uh they wait for that hatch to open and get that first fresh breath of air again just some great views here this is the recovery vessel with the helipad on top of it again a helicopter op is going to uh land on that pad there uh board the crew and take them back to land very quickly back to their families and friends that'll hopefully be there to to greet them back to Earth I love this drone shot that we have uh first time we've had a view like this for our recovery operations and it's Dragon SpaceX com check dragon has you loud and clear H loud and clear forward link transition complete all right we can see the recovery team continuing to pull the Dragon capsule a little bit closer there's still one individual there in the bucket where the main parachutes uh are stored during flight you can also see at the top of uh basically at the top of what is the side hatch there's another bucket and that that's where the drog parachutes are located Dragon SpaceX we're can complete approximately 5 minutes until capsule lift copy that 5 minutes till capsule lift again the core communicating to the crew as they can't see outside of the capsule so there's a lot of movements going on there's a lot of sounds that they're going to be hearing and there you can see the hydraulic lift mechanism lowering into position uh in preparation for lifting the Dragon capsule out of the water we'll see the recovery team individual who's there um placing those attachment straps uh onto the straps that he's already or um uh uh basically put around the circumference of the Dragon capsule that individual will climb up a little bit higher on the capsule and then jump off into the Dark Water and oh here's a cool view uh from above the uh that helicopter pad uh that is where the helicopter will land and take the four crew members back to land so about 5 minutes well at this point 4 minutes until uh the capsule is lifted out of the water Dragon SpaceX brace for capsule lift there they go for bracing it's probably warm water K yeah you know what sea creatures love warm water too in my head they're not going to hurt you we can see the Dragon capsule now coming out of the water our first view of that well-loved heat shield at the bottom of the Dragon resilience vehicle dragon now completely out of the water and will be lowered onto that cradle there once the Dragon capsule is lowered we will see the recovery team who are obviously out of the way for safety reasons at this point in time but once the capsule is um translated and secured we'll see them begin to hose it down with fresh water uh as we reuse these capsules um we want to try and minimize the effects of corrosion which of course happened due to saltwater so we will actually begin to see not only that Basin where the main parachutes were located uh that will get rinsed out as well as the the overall capsule the crew is now on the recovery vessel probably their first moment of a little bit more stability being back on Earth again what will happen next is once the Dragon capsule is fully seated in the nest uh and we'll remove all the rigging from the capsule that will then translate that capsule and move it forward to a platform Dragon SpaceX welcome aboard the recovery vessel recovery Personnel are completing final checks standby for translation to the egress platform Cy space standing by all right great news there and uh it looks like actually the estimation for Lift was uh uh we we completed it 2 minutes early so like I said it's a pretty efficient operation the recovery team not only have they performed this on numerous actual uh human SP space flight missions but also in in rehearsals and and training procedures of their own so it looks like the crew members that you see there um have dawned some PPE once again um these are respirators that help to ensure that if there are any lingering hypergolic uh fumes that they will not be exposed to it so they are actually installing plugs into uh the uh the basically the the the outlet of those Draco thrusters and Performing additional uh hypergolic sniffs to ensure that there are no residual fumes once they install all of the necessary Draco plugs they will continue uh with a final round of um detection checks and dragon Space X looking for your okay to come on board with cameras hey thanks drag and you're welcome aboard with the cams SpaceX copies recovery team continuing with the installation of those safety plugs to help prevent any uh um fumes from the Draco thrusters are Draco engines utilize hypergolic propellants and those are toxic to humans of course and so we want to ensure the safety of our recovery team as well as the Polaris Dawn crew so we are going to close up those thrusters and perform some additional uh fume checks before allowing anyone to approach oh our first view inside the capsule post splash down got some happy face visors up and then seat belts on yeah H the classic kid thumbs up yes I love it yep uh I've actually been following along with I've been following along with uh the procedures that they have on their tablets they located on their legs and it's actually written into their procedure to remain seated and restrained just in case if uh anybody inside was feeling daring they are they are still required to uh keep all hands inside uh the ride at all times yeah that that is actually very important they have been out in space for five days uh they don't have gravity you know forcing their muscles um to be working the way that we utilize them here on Earth so it is important that when they do take their first steps that we have uh some of the crew and the medical team there to support them in case they need any help absolutely again it's only been 5 days uh the inspiration 4 crew did three days and uh they were able to pretty easily walk out uh of the capsule but we'll see how uh This Crew does back on gravity yeah everyone uh seems to be pretty calm and collected and just chilling out uh as they await for the Dragon capsule to be translated looks like that should be happening just in a NE in the next couple excuse me the next couple minutes um as the recovery team completes their uh safety installations and removing some uh harnessing connections uh that Nest that the Dragon capsule is in will move toward the forward end of The Vessel where there is basically in in the the central part of the of the vessel there is a a deck where SpaceX uh crew members are standing by and as Jesse said will be able to assist the astronauts if necessary to get out of um uh out of the capsule or or egress as we say and a cool view here just looking from behind the seats on your left hand side is Commander Jared isaacman and your right hand side is our pilot pilot kid po you can kind of get a feel for the difference in seat position uh in terms of the position that it's in now and the position that it the seats were in while the crew was still in Space the warning and the 1.21 gaw uh uh stickers were a little bit closer to us I I feel like so it kind of gives you a feel for the amount of rotation in those seats pretty cool to be able to see the same displays that the crew um utilizes while they were in Flight once again uh dragon resilience has been successful well first of all made a made an ontime splash down uh in the I guess this would be you know in considered in the Florida Keys down near uh at Dry Tortugas and they had a pretty quick recovery out of the water um they are now on the recovery vessel and standing by for the final preparations uh performed by the recovery team prior to uh basically opening that side hatch once again this will be the first time that the Polaris Dawn crew will have fresh air it'll be fresh salty fishy air but fresh air nonetheless and there we can see the Dragon capsule now being moved toward the central part of the ship you can see there uh there are some SpaceX crew members also wearing respirators once again as we will perform the final hypergolic um safety uh sniffing te tests uh as I mentioned earlier beginning to spray the Dragon capsule down with fresh water water to try and rinse that salt water off of the metallic components this is very exciting we're just a few minutes away there's still some more procedures that they have to go through in order to open that hatch but just a few minutes away from hatch opening again the first person that will meet them will be the flight surgeon who will enter the capsule and make sure that the crew is feeling good and ready to exit their seats for those of you that just have uh that have joined just recently uh the Dragon capsule carrying the polaron crew splashed down just 41 minutes ago at 12:36 a.m. Pacific Time 3:36 a.m. uh East Coast time and here we are uh 40 minutes later pretty quick operations by the recovery teams in terms of getting over to where the capsule landed getting uh the parachutes out of the water and adhering the required straps and ultimately lifting the Dragon capsule up onto the recovery vessel as we just saw a few minutes ago right now the recovery team outside of the Dragon capsule like I said before spraying down the capsule with some freshwat Dragon SpaceX standby for side hatch opening and erress all right good news there copy that space XX we're standing by looks like those safety checks were quick and successful as everyone has doed their respirators and there you can see officially the hatch is open I just heard cheering From A Distant part of the building I have a feeling that came from the dragon teams at their computers that that was pretty cool that is the uh the flight surgeon doing initial uh medical checks making sure that everybody is feeling good I have a feeling by his smiling face he's getting four Smiling Faces in return PlayOn crew has now officially taken their first breath of earth air in the last five days we can see the recovery team in the background um basically putting up some protective uh fixtures around the the side hatch in order to sure that as the crew egresses and uh and and and gets assisted as they come out of the capsule that they uh don't hurt the the the side hatch seals uh or themselves uh obviously want to protect the the individuals as well and super exciting we can see that the crew is now prepping the Dragon capsule for the crew egress and there is you know they're going to be removing their harness um removing any equipment out of the way to that they are safe to step out of their seats Andress the Dragon capsule even the flight surgeon has to be assisted it's some tough maneuvering so we'll start to see the but rests um the recovery team will come in and there is our Polaris on crew our first live view with the side hatch open fist pumps thumbs up I'm sure if we had audio there would be some cheers as well I'm sure the crew is so excited to be home mission complete like they said after 5 days of some historic Milestones that smiling face there in the side hatch taking pictures I'm sure that is John Krauss also known as snap uh he is the I believe the content director for the Polaris Dawn program I'm sure uh it's an exciting moment to be able to capture both with video and photo The Smiling Faces of the crew members now we can see some SpaceX crew members uh recovery team uh they'll come in they will start to remove the footrests at the bottoms of each seat that will help give a little bit more moving room uh or I should say area to uh for folks to get in and help the the our four polaron astronauts get out a little bit easier there's a foot rest being removed there as Kate mentioned fun fact about those foot rests they are uh customized for each astronaut uh as well as the armrests so each armrest and footrest basically comes in like a small medium or large option and depending on excuse me the uh the foot length and the arm length of each individual they get their appropriate size for their body measurements yeah I mean that goes with the seats themselves the suits themselves are all customized to each individual astronaut and crew member um basically they get a customized version just for themselves for these missions now we can see that um pardon me the crew members are now able to undo their safety harnesses their their fivepoint safety straps and uh I guess that would be the last step before before uh being able to get out now it seems as though the first person to come out will be Anna Menan who is on the far right side as we are looking at it she is in seat 4 yeah so Anna is now making her way with this assisted ESS Mission specialist an a men in there she is fellow space yes so happy I love this so excited welcome back to Earth Anna we heard um Haley Arseno who was one of the mission Specialists and uh and she for the inspiration for Mission uh we heard her say that Jared um always let the ladies go first and so I have a feeling that Sarah might be the next one to egress here yep we can see her uh now getting out of her seat she and Anna had the two window seats SpaceX team assisting her to make sure that she doesn't hit the side hatch in any way so much excitement our second space xer to fly in space mission specialist Sarah Gillis back on on Earth so cool to see her now egressing is our pilot kid potit I would bet good money that we're going to see some thumbs up once kid exits it's pretty cool to see that um they are coming out standing up on their own two feet and walking offex dragon this is the final call sign off some dance moves that's pretty great I think that move should be added to the required choreography for human space flight missions you know we have the astronaut lean back when they approach their rocket on launch day the uh kid Shuffle I think should be the the next one for for post egress we heard Jared get one last call out on the loops before egressing himself and the final Polaris Dawn crew member egressing Dragon resilience Commander Jared Isaac men our second frequent flyer in Dragon completing his second mission in space for a second I thought for for a second I thought he was saying goodbye to spacecraft uh but it turns out he was saying goodbye to the people still in there assisting him with his egress so uh incredible to see um what what a day what a week what a week and now with our Polaris daon crew safely back home on Earth and getting checked out by our medical team what an incredible and exciting Mission this has been next up the crew will actually catch a helicopter flight back to shore where they will rejoin their families over the 5-day Miss plon set records and marked a few firsts that are critical to spacex's long-term plans for making Humanity a multiplanetary species after lifting off on Tuesday September 10th at 5:23 a.m. eastern time from launch complex 39a at the Kennedy Space Center Dragon climbed to an apog of just over 1,48 km flying further than any dragon to date and traveling further from Earth than any humans since the end of the Apollo program then on September 12th SpaceX teams and the Piston crew successfully conducted the first space walk from Dragon testing our new in-house developed Eva suits and procedures that will be critical for building bases and cities on the moon and Mars yeah and it was so cool to watch that the crew also performed a number of science and research experiments while in orbit including 36 research studies and experiments designed to advance both human health on Earth and during long duration long duration space flight and over the course of the mission the crew demonstrated star Link's power to transform the way we communicate with spacecraft and people in low earth orbit including that incredible Music Moment which uh I've watched many times and we'll continue to watch even more now our future in space is definitely bright and it's really exciting to think about where we will be in the notto distant future with all of that thank you so much for joining us tonight and all week at as always be sure to check x.com SpaceX for updates I'm Kate Ty and I'm Jesse Anderson thank you to everyone for being with us this week for the Polaris daon Mission and have an incredible night and just like that the history books have been Rewritten again the plis dawn mission complete welcome home Jared Scott Sarah and Anna thank you all for joining us with our live coverage for the last multiple weeks as we count it down to the launch of player Dawn and have live tracked it for the entire duration of the mission if it was your first time here welcome if it was your many time back welcome back my name is Zach I'm the founder and host here at the Launchpad and here at the Launchpad Network it's our mission to inform and Inspire the explorers of tomorrow because we believe that space is better together and I invite you to engage that subscribe button so you never miss another live launch coverage space news up exclusive one-on-one interview or more we're uh working things out to get to sit down with Jared and the crew of poison now that they are back here on Earth we've got crew n launching in just a couple of weeks so we get another crew mission launching to the space station and crew eight returning back just a couple weeks later so we get to see three out of the four SpaceX crew dragons fly within the same month and then in a couple months we get to see the fourth one fly with the historic Fram 2 mission to Polar orbit this is just the beginning of New Era of space exploration and we hope you will join us along the way for that you can join us as part of our community over on our Discord it's free to join that's where Community hangs out in between streams but it is the middle of the night it has been a long week and I invite us all to go get some much needed sleep but again Jared Scott Sarah and Anna welcome home congratulations to them to the entire Polaris program in SpaceX on another historic mission complete from our TLP space Co Studio my name is Zach on behalf of the entire top crew thank you so much for joining us and we will see you next time because space is better together good night for