Elon Musk Discusses Starship & Successful Crew-2 Launch

good morning and thank you for joining us earlier today at 5 49 a.m nasa and spacex crew 2 mission blasted off from kennedy space center's launch complex 39a the crew 2 mission is a second crew rotation fight of the crew dragon spacecraft and falcon 9 rocket carrying nasa astronauts shane kimbrough and megan macarthur jassa astronaut aki hoshide and isa astronaut tomorrow pasque to the international space station my name is jackie mcginnis nasa press secretary and i'm joined here today by acting nasa administrator steve jersey elon musk chief engineer at spacex kathy leaders associate administrator for nasa's human exploration operations mission directorate steve stitch manager of nash's commercial crew program joe montevano manager of the international space station program at nasa hiroshi sasaki vice president and director general of jaxa's human space flight technology directorate and frank chavinna manager of the international space station program at the european space agency each speaker will make brief remarks and then we will open the lines for questions from the media for reporters on the line press star 1 to get into the queue to ask a question please remember to state your name and media affiliation before you speak and address the speaker you'd like to answer your question please only ask one question and address one per speaker at a time you may enter the queue again and ask additional questions first up we'll hear from acting administrator steve jersey hey thank you jackie and it's just great to be here today uh so first i want to thank encourage congratulate the the nasa team spacex team and our international partners what we do is really challenging but also rewarding and we could not do it without our commercial and international partners so thank you and congratulations um watching a launch from kennedy space center never gets old for me i've watched many launches and uh and watching a pre-daw launch is especially um exciting and and just visually stunning and this this launch was and um a little bit different for me this time as acting administrator um but again i'm just congratulations team i could not be more proud of the team it's been a really incredible year for nasa um for all our mission areas but particularly for human space flight with with three launches in 11 months and it's hard to believe it was just uh 11 months ago last may where we were in the the room we were watching the launch from the day and doing the first flight radius review for a human exploration mission in just about a decade uh and and then we did the demo two mission and uh i just it's just been incredible to be a part of it um this marks many important milestones um but it really is important for getting a regular cadence of crew to the station and back um and it's gonna really accelerate the research and technology development that we're able to do on station and i'm really looking forward to um what crew i've really enjoyed watching what crew one has been able to accomplish and i'm going to really enjoy what crew 2 is going to do on on their six-month stint on iss it took it took 10 years to get here um to achieve this bold vision we had for commercial crew and uh and again it's been amazing what the team has been able to accomplish you know the what we do on iss is important not only for the research and technology development that we do for here on earth but also to prepare for what we're going to do in the future so iss is not only important for our commercial activities in space and stimulating those but also for our exploration missions um we'll continue to celebrate the marvels of the international space station and the science and technology development that will be conducting as we look to the future of sending astronauts um to lunar orbit and eventually the surface and then our ultimate goal of sending astronauts to mars so coupled with our robotic exploration and uh and our earth science missions that look down at at earth i'm proud to be a part of this team that makes it all happen and look easy and i can assure you it is not is not easy but we have an incredibly talented team at nasa along with our commercial international partners and i know they've gotten the job done this last year and i know they're going to get the job done moving forward so thank you thanks and now we have elon musk chief engineer at nasa spacex thank you uh well i think um actually steve said said really um all the really important things i'm just really proud of the spacex team and the and are to be partnered with uh with nasa and uh and and uh helping with jackson and issa as well uh so um uh yeah just thrilled to be part of advancing uh human space flight and looking forward to um yeah going going beyond earth orbit to the moon and mars and helping make humanity a space spring civilization and a multi-planet species one day thank you thank you and now we have kathy leaders associate administrator for nasa's human exploration operations mission directorate well i mean i i think i'm just always amazed at the nasa and in particular the spacex team that diligently stepped through and got us ready to fly once again and really want to thank elon and the team from a hill perspective and thank steve stitch and joel here who have been working really hard to keep this cadence going it's a very very very exciting time for human exploration right now just like steve said you know joel every day advances science and technology on the international space station and that has really been enabled with the activities um and the flights that spacex has provided for us over the last 11 months like we said and the commercial crew team has been working to keep that science and technology development going joel's had a had a busy month we were talking the other day about he just had a a soyuz launch a soyuz landing now we've got a commercial crew launch and you know we're going to be obviously working through and making sure we get the four crew members there and safely to station but then steve and joel are going to be getting ready for a crew one landing with the spacex folks so very very very exciting time for us in addition we've got a core stage coming in next week which will be joining the solid rocket motors that have now been stacked in the bab and the orion spacecraft that's now been fueled getting ready for our first artemis one uncrewed demonstration mission so we're going to be working and and getting our exploration system ready to go and very very excited about that in addition last week we had announced to uh spacex the uh human landing system demonstration uh mission too so um uh this is you know when i i took over for heli i thought after that demo 2 mission i thought oh my gosh i'm going to be missing on these fun missions but really i kind of have the best of both all worlds now with all the cool missions that joel and steve the artemis teams doing and further missions going forward to moon and then eventually mars so very very exciting time for us thank you thank you kathy now we have steve stitch manager of nasa's commercial crew program uh thank you jackie uh as i watched the the video play before we uh started our opening remarks it's just reflected on the last two years as steve jersey said we've have now three crude missions in in just over 11 months and when i think about watch the video i just think about the team that we have between nasa commercial crew and spacex an incredible team that refurbished this crew one booster that just flew our crew 2 team to the space station refurbishing the dragon spacecraft over these last 10 months and just all the hard work across the country from the spacex team the nasa team and certifying it you know i was thinking about some of the meetings we have and and spacex and nasa work so well together at times during these meetings people will finish each other's sentences one person on the spacex side may say something and nasa knows exactly what that person is thinking is just tremendous teamwork dragon's doing well in orbit the crew is out of their suits right now uh the crew is uh in the middle of a meal they'll go to bed uh this afternoon here about two eastern and sleep in until about uh about 10 p.m and uh and then they'll get in their suits uh saturday morning at about 2 50 a.m eastern time uh for the final rendezvous and docking and they'll make contact about 5 10 a.m eastern with a final docking around 5 23 a.m so kind of a busy time for the crew and the ground teams as they look over dragon as i said dragon is doing very well today the weather cooperated you know we moved the launch one day we looked at the abort weather and the down range aboard track wasn't very good for thursday we moved that launch one day and the weather just cooperated great today you know the vehicle improvements that spacex embarked upon for this flight adding capability to uh to handle onshore winds today was the difference really in getting off with the onshore winds with the vehicle we had for crew one and demo two we would not have gotten off the countdown was very smooth we worked a couple of things checking out a cover on the draco thruster and making sure the hydraulic system was ready to go but other than that the countdown was extremely smooth today a lot of people worked very hard to put that together and then as kathy alluded to it's a busy time for us we'll uh we'll get the crew docked uh on saturday and then uh after we get them safely on board we'll start to focus on the crew one return and uh preliminarily we're looking at undocking on wednesday april the 28th at about 7 a.m eastern time and the targeted touchdown is tallahassee with uh with a landing on wednesday april 28th about 12 40. it's a busy time for us it's an exciting time it's the first time we've done this direct handover and uh i'm just really proud to be part of the team thanks steve now we have joel montelbano manager of the iss program at nasa hello again that just an outstanding launch and a great way to end the week you know we're excited to have another commercial crew mission on board and in space coming to the international space station and these missions allow us to keep our utilization research program our technology development for artemis and our low earth orbit commercialization activities onboard the international space station moving forward with an incredible amount of steep you know these these missions they enable these activities on board so we're excited to have it we're also excited to have 11 people on board after docking and it'll only be a short time but it's something that we've been preparing for and we're looking forward to it after launch we did inform the crew on board the international space station that we had a successful launch and company was on its way they didn't pass uh congratulations to the team on the ground and i'd like to also pass my congratulations to the commercial crew program and the spacex teams for just an outstanding outstanding launch today thank you thanks joel now we have hiroshi sasaki vice president and director general of jax's human space flight technology directorate thank you for the introduction i'm hiro sasaki a vice president for jackson responsible for human space flight and space exploration first of all on behalf of jackson i'd like to express my sense of thanks to nasa spacex and all staff who have been working for these missions under the severe covet 19 situations as reported areas the crew dragon was launched into the orbit nominally the mission sequence is still going on but i'd like to congratulate all of you on the successful launch i have already seen grow dragon launch for japanese astronaut soichinogi last november and i am so delighted uh again to be part of the team uh here today it is uh really a great pleasure not only for me but also the japan that the two japanese astronauts soichi and aki on board the operational flight of the dragon twice in a row they will meet together at the iess i believe this is brought by the very close tie between japan and the u.s for many years through the iss program accuracy there on board the crew 2 will contribute to the expedition 6562 mission as a commander i hope he will jointly create fruitful outcomes together with his fellow astronauts working also very closely with colleagues on the ground during these missions jackson's planning performed various scientific and technical research such as protein crystal growth for medicine design contributing to the people on the ground and demonstration on enhanced water recovery system preparing the future exploration mission as well jaxa is also going to hold a robotic program challenge with nasa to inspire young people around the world i am looking forward to see that aki will contribute to those activities through the great teamwork i believe the crew 2 mission is a symbol of international and industry partnership four crew members from nasa esa and jaxa on board good dragon launched by the spacex i believe it's the first time that nasa esa and jackson not flying to and stay for long duration at the iss together human space activities are really a great global interview that people pushing the human boundaries from the leo to the moon and even beyond i am confident that the international partnership is truly important and japan will contribute to take part in this human endeavor by making the best use of our employees such as ecosystem and transfer vehicles we are going together once again congratulations on the successful launch thank you thank you and finally we have frank davina manager of the iss program at esa thank you jackie uh what a great day and uh what an excitement to see the four crew members and of course our easy astronaut toma pesque launched on a crew dragon to the international space station uh it's a great uh time for us we have uh permanently now four usos crew members on orbit meaning that uh the crew time that we have available for science and utilization has drastically increased and we thank the partners and of course spacex and nasa with all the international partners to make this happen tomorrow we'll have a busy schedule on the 15th of july we will also launch the mlm module with our colleagues from roscosmos and on that module will be the european robotic arm and so tomorrow will also be involved in the commissioning and the checkout of this european robotic arm that we have been waiting for long to launch to the international space station and after tomorrow we will uh have matthias more that will launch in the fall of this year and after that samantha crystal ferretti so for the first time we will have three esa astronauts in a row that will be permanently on board of the international space station so really great times to come for for the european space agency all the science technology that we do it's of course for the benefit of people here on earth and for humankind but it's also to prepare for the future isa together with our colleagues from jackson and canada are part of the gateway program we are looking forward to whether further work with nasa on those programs to have our esa astronauts fly to the gateway but not stop there we also want to have in the future our esa astronauts walk on the surface of the moon so exciting times to be in human space flight and really looking forward to further enhance this great international cooperation thank you thank you as a reminder for reporters on the line press star one to get into the queue and ask a question first up we have marcia dunn with the associated press gorgeous launch for elon could you describe your emotions at liftoff and does it get any easier easier for you on a personal level level being responsible for lives after three crew flights thank you it's it's very very intense um i suppose it does get a little bit easier but it's still extremely intense and uh i usually can't sleep the night before launch and that's was true of the night before this one so i haven't had much sleep um but unfortunately we've got a great team that are really um really proud of the incredible work the team has done partnership with nasa [Music] and yeah i suppose it gets a little bit easier but but still still pretty intense i have to say um so um yeah kind of it's hard to believe that we're here doing this quite frankly you know feels like a dream thank you and now we have bill hardwood with cbs thanks uh and and again congratulations to all of you uh for this launch three crew dragon flights in less than a year is quite a record and i guess for mr musk i realized this current flight is less than two hours old right now but can you tell us anything about the schedule for the next flight the inspiration uh for launch schedule and one question i think a lot of us have is is how do you do that flight without working with nasa i mean in terms of crew quarters and suit up and facilities in general right um yeah well i think we'll still be obviously uh coordinating with nasa and and uh the that'll be you know put a free flyer mission with um a a kind of a big uh kind of glass dome on the front instead of docking adapter so it should give a quite a different feel for like to really you should really feel like you're you're in space more than one you know because it'll just be you just surrounded by a glass or acrylic technically but um yeah so yeah we're looking forward to that mission um but obviously still be work you know working in coordination with nasa for that mission so um that that should be hopefully like as the name suggests uh inspiration you know and actually you know i think that's the that's thing about you know human space flat is that it's it's one of those things that makes people excited about the future uh you know you look forward to you know wake up in the morning and think hey what's going to be great about the future it's like man if we're out there and we're a space faring civilization and and visiting other planets and those exciting plants i think that's that's what gets one of those things it gets people fired up you know yeah certainly gets me fired up obviously thank you now we have eric berger with rs technica hi good morning and congratulations to uh to everyone on this um a couple of questions first of all maybe for for steve stitch can you comment on the fact that you know in less than four years i guess it's been about four years since spacex first launched a falcon 9 rocket for the second time the scs-10 mission um has it been a rapid process to try to get to the certification of the falcon 9 you know uh previously phone rockets for crew and and elon can you comment on the human landing system award last friday you know how important is it to spacex that nasa showed that kind of confidence in starship and is now talking about using the vehicle for the moon and potentially mars thank you yeah i'll take the first question regarding the certification of the falcon 9 you know for for the first flight for demo 2 for bob and doug we had gone through a certification of the rocket uh for that very for one flight so we had started to understand the systems we actually follow the whole fleet of all the flights that spacex flies spacex has been a great partner in sharing data in every single flight and we were able to look at the performance so over time we started to understand uh how the engines perform how the rocket itself performs and then in partnership with spacex we went through and looked at every single piece of the launch vehicle the engines the structures uh everything about the re-entry and the heating and we were able to in about 10 months go through uh on the order of 400 or so certification products in addition to those products delivered by spacex we also did our independent analysis of certain key components from a structural perspective we looked at the the heating for entry and and did an independent assessment of that to make sure that we were comfortable with the with the margins and so it was a quite an extensive effort in 10 months by our team and an incredible partnership between nasa and spacex and elon yeah it's it's a great art to be chosen by nasa to return uh people to the moon um it's been now almost half a century since humans were last on the moon it's too long we need to get back there and uh and have a permanent base in the moon i think a like a big permanently occupied base on the moon and uh and then build a city on mars and become a space faring you know like space breaking civilization of multi-planet species we don't want to be one of those single planet species we want to be a multi-planet species you know so yeah but thank you now we have irene klotz with aviation week thanks jackie and congratulations that was a really exotic launch this morning um for elon um how will the uh funding from hls impact your design and development and schedule for starship and what's been kind of your technological challenge challenges with the project so far well i mean it's definitely really helpful in funding this the sasha program it's mostly been funded internally thus far and it's pretty expensive um as you can tell if you've been watching videos we've you know blown up a few of them um so uh excitement guaranteed um one way or another um so it's it's a it's a tough vehicle to build because we're we're trying to crack this nut of a rapid and fully enrol you know fully and rapidly reusable rocket and i apologize i'm a little slow enough to take care of them going on not much sleep at all but the the thing that's really important to revolutionize space is a rapidly reusable rocket that's reliable too so that's really what what needs to happen if that if that can be done then the cost of access to orbit and beyond can be reduced by potentially a factor of 100 or more so um that's that's really what what what is um most important about it's got to be done by some somebody's got to do this um and uh and if that is if you have rapid and complete reusability then that that opens up that's that is the gateway to the heavens that's what matters that's what we're trying to get done and the support of nasa is it makes a huge difference thank you to media on the line just a reminder to focus your questions this morning on the crew 2 mission that'd be greatly appreciated next up we have joey roulette with the verge hey thanks jackie and congrats everyone on a on a good launch this question's for elon musk um from your perspective i was just wondering if you are plugged in or if you have any idea what to hold up on getting an agreement with the russians for flying cosmonauts on crew dragon is would you like to see cosmonauts flying on crew dragons sooner than later and uh since hls was mentioned earlier i just was just wondering um how soon will starship be able to put humans on the moon thanks i i do not have any insight on on that with regard to the cosmos but of course we would be uh you know honored to fly um cosmonauts on dragon but i do not have any insight into any potential objections i i'm not perhaps this may be just a communications uh breakdown i don't know um but uh i don't have any insight into it i mean it's we're we're actually working through the agreements right now and i think people understand and i think we talked about this in the post-fr news conference that people understand the importance of you know crew swaps for supportability of iss and so we're working through that um and getting that agreement in place it takes a while sometimes i found out there's lots of people to coordinate with so it doesn't happen as fast probably as i want it to but it's it's we're working through it thank you and now we have stephen clark with space flight now thank you and congratulations to everyone uh my question is for elon musk as well um this was the first time uh you've watched astronauts on a reuse shopkin nine and crew dragon although it's far from the first time you've done that for you know overall through your flight history i'm curious uh you know as you develop starship uh to focus on that rapid full usability as you're flying your manifest with falcon 9 how many missions do you think you can get out of a falcon 9 booster um and is that something you're you're willing to push the limit on to you know keep flying one until it breaks or you know for a stomach mission for example or or are you do you see like a a plateau or a ceiling in terms of flight number for a falcon 9 booster going forward well that doesn't seem to be um this doesn't seem to be any uh obvious limit to the reusability of the vehicle um and yeah we do intend to fly the falcon 9 booster until we see some kind of a failure with the stalling missions obviously just have that be a life leader um and we're just actually talking in the in the control room as we're talking with the um between spacex nasa and we're like wondering you know what like what's the optimal number of launches for you know do you want to be on a on a brand new booster or well you probably don't want to be on the life leader for for a crew mission um but uh but you know it's probably good to have a flight or two under its belt for the booster to have flown you know once or twice i think if it was like a you know an aircraft coming out of an aircraft factory you'd want the aircraft to probably have gone on a test flight or two before you know you put passengers on so uh yeah i think that's probably you know a couple flights is a good number to have for a for a crew booster and um in the meantime we'll we'll keep flying the uh the live leader who got nine flights on one of the boosters we're gonna have a tenth flight soon with a starlight mission and um yeah we're learning a lot about reusability and it's a hard problem for rockets i mean there's a reason it's not it has really you know what right now falcon 9's the only um partially reusable rocket being flown you know with the booster coming back and the fairing coming back but we still can't we don't reuse the upper stage or the dragon trunk and so with the starship we're aiming just like hopefully hopefully we use the whole thing um but this is a hard problem for rockets that's for sure and it's taken us uh we're like 19 years in now um but i think the i think we can see the the starship design can work it's just it's a hard thing to solve um and the support of nasa is very much appreciated in this regard um i don't know i think it's gonna i think it's gonna work that's gonna work thank you and next up we have david curley with the discovery channel hi there sorry hun meeting um for anybody nasa or spacex was bob banking allowed to leave anything for megan in the dragon and elon uh it's been a long journey uh with the hls and everything else on the arc of what you're hoping to do are you going faster or slower i know you had some frustrations early but where do you see bigger picture we are and where we need to go thank you i guess i'll take the question of bob you know i don't know of anything specific that he left for megan um he certainly left a lot of uh love tenderness and care of that vehicle while he flew it and you know for me as the program manager for commercial crew it's it's pretty exciting to see you know bob having flown that vehicle for the first time testing it out and taking it for a spin for his wife megan and she gets to take it for a little longer so it's kind of cool to see the two fly in the same vehicle and the first time that we've reused that vehicle so yeah actually i don't know if people saw the the zero g indicator this time which is uh this cute fluffy penguin called my first penguin um you know it's this cute keyfloppy penguin that's floating around in 0g right now i don't know if there's a picture of that but it's it's kind of cute and then let's see i mean yes it's been 19 years uh since starting spacex and uh so a lot of adventures along the way some some tough times and a lot of good times um i'd say it's only recently though that i i think that i i feel that uh full and rapid reusability can be accomplished um and i wasn't sure for a long time but i am sure now thank you and next up we have jeff faust with space news good morning uh question for elon musk um you know it took years of development to get the crew dragon to the point where you could have a successful series of missions like crew 2 this morning at what point do you think starship will be ready to start carrying people thanks well i think we are trying to keep the questions to uh you know we're limited to this you know this mission but um civical speculate with respect to i mean i don't know i mean if i tend to be as as you know i tend to be somewhat optimistic with respect to schedules uh um i feel i should acknowledge this um but um you know so take that with a grain of salt but um i i think it's not out of the question that it could be ready for flying cr fly people in a couple years obviously we need to like not be making craters you know uh otherwise like hop in we're going to mars no not quite not yet um it's got some work to do but making rapid progress i think if they're we're going to make sure we're accelerating the rate of innovation and then it could be ready in a couple years thank you now we have eric nyler with wired uh greetings uh congratulations to everybody um senator bill nelson mentioned a 2024 uh timetable for for a lunar landing uh through hls during a confirmation hearing on capitol hill and i'm just wondering from elon whether that's kind of a crazy talk or is that something you feel optimistic about i i think that can be done um yeah i think so um i think we're yeah we're we're we're both to build a lot of rockets and we're going to probably smash a bunch of them but um i can i think i think this i think it will happen i think 2024 this seems likely we're going to aim for sooner than that but i think you know i think we're 20 this is this is actually doable yes thanks and we have time for one more question camden hall from talk of titusville thanks for taking my question my question is for elon where were you watching the launch from were you in the lcc like you were for demo 2 or somewhere else thanks um yeah i was in launch control and the yeah it's funny it's the same it's the same same place the same launch control at where the lunar missions were launched from you know it's pretty wild it's the same windows same glass um so it's a little hard to see out at night uh during the day it's a lot easier so yeah the view from the the roof is actually better from the view from launch control um but you can see all the data there so i know the future's looking good like we're i think we're at the dawn of a new era of space exploration thank you again to all of our speakers and to our reporters that's going to wrap things up for us here our crew 2 mission coverage continues on nasa tv we'll have live coverage all the way to the international space station including true crew dragon docking hatch opening and the welcome ceremony docking is targeting at 5 10 a.m saturday april 24th with hatch opening at 7 15 am and the welcome ceremony at 7 45 am so stay tuned thank you

Channel: Space Videos

Views: 366,019

Rating: 4.9332252 out of 5

Keywords: space, orbit, rocket, rockets, spacetravel, space travel

Id: KGMn0IVK-Z0

Length: 37min 22sec (2242 seconds)

Published: Fri Apr 23 2021

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