SpaceX's New Sea-going Ships Are Named In Honor Of The First NASA Astronauts Launched Aboard Crew Dragon

SpaceX made history on May 30, 2020, when it performed its first crewed mission known as ‘Demo-2'. A Falcon 9 rocket lifted off from American soil carrying NASA astronauts Robert ‘Bob' Behnken and Douglas ‘Doug' Hurley atop a Falcon 9 rocket to the International Space Station (ISS). It marked the first time in nearly a decade that humans launched from the United States. SpaceX employees call the brave astronaut pair – “Space Dads” – because they tested all of Crew Dragon's capabilities and functions during the debut trip and helped the company earn a certification to perform crewed flights. The astronauts rode the Crew Dragon Endeavour spacecraft to the orbiting laboratory. After a two-month-long stay at ISS, Bob and Doug packed their bags to return aboard Endeavour. They returned to Earth on August 2nd when Endeavour crossed Earth's rough atmosphere and splashed-down in the ocean off Florida's coast, demonstrating it is reliable to carry out human missions to space. Since the Space Dads returned, the company has launched two operational crewed missions for NASA.

SpaceX operates a fleet of sea-going ships that support missions. Soon after astronauts return from space, SpaceX teams look for the spacecraft in the ocean to pick-up the crew and recover the capsule from the water. Ships are also used to recover the Falcon 9 rocket’s fairing halves as they return from space to conduct a parachute-assisted splashdown in the ocean. Recovering spacecraft to reuse helps reduce the cost of spaceflight. The company used to rent a pair of ships for the fairing recovery operation but now it acquired its own. SpaceX new sea-going ships are named in honor of the first NASA astronauts launched aboard Crew Dragon – ‘Doug’ and ‘Bob’. A photographer from Florida’s Space Coast captured a collection of photos of the ship named ‘Doug’, linked below.

SpaceX's newest fleet member, Doug. @SpaceOffshore

📷: Me for @SuperclusterHQ pic.twitter.com/OWdZdkIlSD

— Jenny Hautmann (@JennyHPhoto) August 31, 2021

SpaceX also introduced a new autonomous droneship to recover Falcon 9 rocket boosters this year. On August 29, the ‘A Shortfall Of Gravitas’ (ASOG) droneship made its debut during SpaceX’s 23rd Commercial Resupply Services mission for NASA. Soon after launching the cargo Dragon capsule to orbit, a Falcon 9’s first-stage booster landed on A Shortfall Of Gravitas for the first time. On Tuesday, the company shared a photo of the droneship transporting the booster to the port, pictured below. A Shortfall Of Gravitas joins the rocket recovery vessels, ‘Of Course I Still Love You' (OCISLY) and ‘Just Read The Instructions’ (JRTI). All three vessels are named in honor of deceased author Iain M. Banks, who wrote the Sci-Fi “Culture” novel series. In the fiction novels, the droneship names belong to characters that are autonomous spaceships with artificial intelligence.

A Shortfall of Gravitas returns to port with Falcon 9 after its first mission pic.twitter.com/PPFQEpFo1Z

— SpaceX (@SpaceX) August 31, 2021

Nice morning at Port Canaveral after the return of Falcon 9 booster 1061-4 aboard the newest SpaceX droneship, "A Shortfall of Gravitas."

"Doug," SpaceX's newest fleet member, is visible, too. pic.twitter.com/hviVIHX3fj

— John Kraus (@johnkrausphotos) August 31, 2021

SpaceX's New Sea-going Ships Are Named In Honor Of The First NASA Astronauts Launched Aboard Crew Dragon ☆

by @JaneidyEve via @Tesmanian_comhttps://t.co/cTVK4q642O

— Evelyn Janeidy Arevalo  (@JaneidyEve) September 1, 2021

Featured Image Source: NASA