Washington. US space agency NASA has launched the Crew-9 mission to bring astronauts Sunita Williams and Bush Wilmore safely to Earth from the International Space Station (ISS). Under the mission, Falcon 9 rocket and Dragon spacecraft of Elon Musk’s company SpaceX have been sent. Along with these two astronauts, NASA astronaut Nick Hague and Russian astronaut Alexander Gorbunov are also included. There are a total of four seats in this mission, out of which two seats have been left vacant for Sunita Williams and Bush Wilmore.
The Falcon 9 rocket, designed by SpaceX, is the world’s first reusable orbit-class rocket, making space travel affordable. This 70 meter long and 549,054 kg rocket can carry up to 22,800 kg to low Earth orbit (LEO). At the same time, the Dragon spacecraft, which is known for carrying astronauts to and from the ISS, is the world’s first private spacecraft that can also bring back cargo.
According to the report, the launch of Falcon 9 rocket before 2022 would cost around $62 million. However, Musk’s company SpaceX increased this amount to $67 million in the year 2022. The amount in rupees is around six and a quarter billion. According to the report, if an astronaut wants to go to the International Space Station or return via Falcon 9, then he has to bear the cost of the entire rocket. There is facility of booking according to seat also. According to the report, due to private companies like SpaceX and Rocket Lab, traveling in space has become much cheaper than before. For example, when America launched the Apollo 11 mission on July 16, 1969, a total of $185 million was spent on it. As of today, this amount comes to around $1.62 billion. The rockets of that era were capable of carrying much less payload than those of today.