The spacecraft in which I was launched into space
1. The Dragon 2 is about eight meters high. It looks like a rotund capsule. The top half is the passenger cabin, in which there are windows, which are intended to allow the passengers to observe the rare vista of the Earth as it can be seen from space. The bottom part has winglets, solar panels, engines, radiators and a cargo bay.
2. Energy - the solar panels provide electricity, the engines drive and the radiators are intended to dissipate the heat.
3. The spacecraft is equipped with 16 Draco thrusters - these are engines which maneuver the Dragon automatically, with no human intervention - to its destination.
4. The Dragon spacecraft is equipped with a Launch Escape System (LES), which will propel the passengers quickly out of harm’s way, in the event of any malfunction in the Falcon launcher rocket that propels the spacecraft into space.
5. Thanks to the advanced technology integrated in it, the spacecraft is capable of landing with helicopter precision.
6. The passenger seats in the Dragon 2 are made of carbon fibers and are padded with black-and-white Alcantara fabric.
7. There are three touch screens installed in the passenger cabin, which provide real-time information and enable taking over control of the spacecraft if necessary. The screens can be touched with the gloves the astronauts will be wearing. There will be flash in response to the touch, indicating to the astronaut where on the screen he or she has touched.
8. Just as the technology installed in the Dragon 2 is state-of-the-art, so is the interior design, which is meticulously executed and totally contemporary, a far cry from the good old spaceships of yesteryear. The design and layout has been overseen by Engineer John Federspiel of SpaceX, who wanted to provide the crew a flight experience within a spacecraft designed as would be fitting for the 21st century.
You can find here the first 10 facts I wrote.
Yours, Eytan
