Emerging from the SpaceX Dragon spacecraft with a bright smile, Mission Pilot Shukla appeared composed and cheerful as he experienced gravity for the first time in over two weeks.
00:00Again, we may not hear the crew until they do get those comms back, that acquisition
00:09of signal. Dragon, SpaceX, comm check.
00:17SpaceX, Dragon, we have you allowed clear.
00:22Dragon, we have you the same. Expect automated shoot deployment.
00:29Dragon copies. Automated shoot deploy.
00:35And great news, as you heard there, we got comms from the X-4 crew.
00:39That's exactly what we're waiting for, and I love that you can hear the excitement in Peggy's voice, too.
00:43It's like she's done this before.
00:45Maybe a few times.
00:47A great live view on your screen inside of Dragon as they are re-entering the Earth's atmosphere.
00:55And we did hear confirmation that there will be the automatic drogue and parachute deployment coming up here shortly.
01:05And on your screen with that great live view.
01:08GPS converge. Expect nominal altitude for drogue shoot deploy.
01:15Copy. Nominal GPS shoot deploy.
01:18And we're going to hear a lot of comms back and forth throughout these last five minutes here as the Corps will be calling out their altitude as they're making their way down, as well as when the drogue parachutes deploy and the main parachutes deploy.
01:34And then as they get closer and closer to Earth, just keeping the crew updated with how close they are before splashdown so that they can expect that splashdown.
01:43Exactly right.
01:44Exactly right.
01:45And those are the things that that crew that you're seeing there on the left side of your screen are following along with their onboard telemetry.
01:51And for you at home as well, you can see on your screens as well, things like vehicle speed, vehicle altitude.
01:58All those are really important metrics that we're trying to understand as part of the visual confirmations, the audio communications or the verbal communications that we've gotten with crew.
02:06We're also getting vehicle communications and telemetry to all understand how we're looking as we lead up to these these next four minutes before.
02:14And there you can see on your screen, the seats are rotating for the crew.
02:19This prepares them for that splashdown.
02:21So they do brace for drogue window.
02:27They do reorient the crew depending on the dynamic events that are happening.
02:32So the crew does lean back during reentry.
02:35And then they are sitting up a little bit more upright for those drogue and main parachutes to deploy.
02:45That's right.
02:45Having them in that position helps distribute the forces correctly so that when they're experiencing that dynamic event, they're as comfortable as they can possibly be.
02:52Yeah.
02:53We're now waiting for confirmation that the Dragon's chutes have deployed coming up here just in under a minute or so.
03:01Just prior to the deployment of the initial drogue chutes, Dragon automatically safes the propulsion system.
03:07Dragon then deploys its drogue parachutes to stabilize and decelerate the vehicle.
03:11Then just before drogue deployment, seats automatically rotate to 26 degrees, which we just saw there, to keep the crew within acceptable G limits for entry and landing.
