Hi everybody and welcome back to another episode of the Elon Musk Podcast. Now we're going to talk about the latest SpaceX Crew Dragon mission, Crew Six, which successfully returned from his journey to the International Space Station. Now this mission involved 3 astronauts and one Russian cosmonaut and it came to a safe conclusion just off the coast of Jacksonville, FL.
From the brilliant streak across the sky to the controlled splashdown but at the future of SpaceX human space flights, this is something that we are all going to be intrigued about now. But before we move on, I'd like to give a shout out to everyone who supports this podcast by joining the Elon Musk Investors Club. Your contributions enable us to keep this show running every single day, covering the latest in technology, space exploration, Tesla X and more.
And if you'd like to become a part of the Elon Musk Investors Club and continue to make this show possible, go to joinclubelon.com. That's join club elon.com. Join club elon.com. Now let's get into the details of this mission. Early Monday between 12:05 AM and 12:17 AM, the Dragon Endeavor capsule meet is descent back to Earth, creating a mesmerizing spectacle over the Gulf of Mexico and central Northeast Florida.
An observer is even reported hearing Sonic booms as the capsule pierced through the Earth's atmosphere. This marks the fourth trip to space for Dragon Endeavor, which had previously flown missions Axiom 1, Crew Two and Demo Two. And upon touching down of the Atlantic Ocean, Crew 6 Commander Stephen Bowen expressed his gratitude to SpaceX.
He said thanks SpaceX. We really appreciate all the support from all the initial training through the launch throughout the mission keeping us abreast of the status of the vehicle and all the support all the way down. Now Stephen Bowen was joined by NASA astronaut Woody Hoburg, the United Arab Emirates Sultan Al Niade and Russian Cosmana Andrei Fedyev, and they all closed the Hatch of this capsule and departed from the International Space Station about 17 hours
before their grand splashdown. Now, the mission itself had lasted about six months, focusing primarily on scientific experiments and maintenance of the International Space Station. And before reentry, the Dragon Endeavor performed its final of 5D orbit burns, sealing its fate for the descent back to Earth. And during this process, the capsules heat shield had to withstand temperatures up to 3500 degrees Fahrenheit.
As expected, the plasma layer around the capsule knocked out communications with the crew for about 7 minutes, a standard occurrence during reentry. Now let's talk about the moment the capsule landed. SpaceX teams immediately approached the capsule floating on the Atlantic waters to ensure that no toxic propellants were leaking.
Following this, the capsule was hoisted up out of the deck of Spacex's recovery ship Megan, named after NASA astronaut Megan MacArthur. And medical checkouts for the astronauts were done right there on the vessel before they boarded a helicopter back to Kennedy Space Center in Florida.
From there, they'll return to NASA's Johnson Space Center in Texas. Now this marks another milestone for SpaceX, which has now flown 11 human spaceflight missions, eight of which were contracted with NASA's Commercial Crew Program. The other three missions, namely inspiration for Axiom 1 and Axiom Two, were focused on
private astronauts. The latest mission, Crew Seven, was launched just over a week ago with astronauts from NASA, the European Space Agency, the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency, and a cosmonaut from Ross Cosmos. Florida's next planned liftoff is a United Launch Alliance Atlas 5 rocket, which was recently grounded due to
hurricane. Now this is a part of a national security mission involving the US Space Force and the National Reconnaissance Office. In addition, SpaceX plans to launch another Falcon 9 carrying a batch of Starlink satellites from Cape Canaveral Space Forest Station. And SpaceX is having a banner year. That only did the company successfully bring back the crew from the ISS, but it also launched 62nd mission of the year, putting 21 more Starlink satellites into orbit.
SpaceX is really pushing the envelope in terms of what's possible in space exploration and satellite development. The Falcon 9 rocket blasted off from NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida at 10:47 PM on Monday. This is Spacex's 62nd launch this year, setting a new yearly record for the company, outdoing its previous record sent last
year. In 2022, the first stage of the Falcon 9 returned to a drone ship about 9 minutes after liftoff, showcasing once again the capability of reusable rockets, and the upper stage deployed the 21 satellites into low Earth orbit roughly an hour after liftoff. And according to information available on Spacex's website, this mission also marked a significant milestone for the Falcon Nine's first stage booster.
It was its 10th launch and landing earlier on Monday as we were discussing Spacex's Dragon spacecraft successfully returned for astronauts from the International Space Station. The crew had been there for 186 days following their launch in March, engaging in an array of tasks, from space walks to scientific experiments and station management. Now, in a post on his X platform formerly known as Twitter, Elon praised the incredible work that SpaceX has done.
SpaceX, as this year, has been responsible for delivering approximately 80% of all Earth payload mass to orbit. To put that into perspective, China supplied about 10%, with the rest of the world contributing the remaining 10%.
That's huge, and they're aiming to escalate the launch frequency for 10 Falcon flights per month by the end of this year, and to push it to 12 per month by 2024. And according to the current stats, SpaceX has completed a total of 261 launches at 223 landings with 195 total reflights. That's the type of innovation that sets the stage for ambitious goals like Mars colonization with the Starship, which has always been a longterm vision for SpaceX and Elon Musk.
Now looking at the future, the next Starlink launch is Friday and taking off from Cape Canaveral in Florida and is for collaborations with NASA. The next one is slated for at least February of 2024, during which SpaceX will transport the crew 8 astronauts to the International Space Station. And yes, the hardware allocations for the Dragon and Falcon rockets are already in the planning stages.
So summing this all up, whether it's bringing astronauts back to the Earth or setting new records and satellite launches, SpaceX is propelling everybody into a new era of space exploration as missions like these that add building blocks to the foundation of the future, where travel to the moon, travel to Mars and beyond are all a possibility now, It's incredible to think that we're living through this right now in an age where all of this is happening right before our eyes.
So thank you so much for joining me on this episode of the Elon Musk Podcast. Don't forget to hit the subscriber follow button on whatever podcast platform you're tuning in from. It's free, really just takes a moment. And also your support enables us to keep delivering this daily podcast. If you're interested in being a part of this journey and getting even more behind the scenes content, remember to check out the Elon Musk Investors Club at joinclubeloncom.
Now until next time, keep looking U take care of yourselves and each other and I'll see you in the next one.