Published 02:35 IST, November 17th 2020
Baby Yoda reaches space with Crew-1 astronauts onboard NASA-SpaceX flight: Watch
NASA and SpaceX on November 15 launched the Dragon's first operational crew mission to the ISS, with astronauts carrying a Baby Yoda plush toy along.
Advertisement
Popular fictional character 'The Child', also known as 'Baby Yoda' has reached space with the Crew-1 mission astronauts. The NASA crew has been sent to the International Space Station (ISS) in a SpaceX flight.
NASA and SpaceX on November 15 (local time) launched the Dragon's first operational crew mission to the Space Station and astronauts carried the Star Wars plushie along with them as a 'zero-gravity indicator' to show the rocket has escaped the Earth's gravitational pull.
Advertisement
'Baby Yoda onboard'
When the Dragon capsule entered space, Baby Yoda was seen floating inside the cabin, which has astronauts Mike Hopkins, Victor Glover, Shannon Walker, and Soichi Noguchi aboard. During NASA's live stream on YouTube, communications specialist Leah Cheshier can be heard saying, "We've got Baby Yoda on board trying to take a seat right now," to which SpaceX engineer Jessica Anderson responded, "I think that's Victor Glover's seat, so I hope he doesn't mind."
Advertisement
This is not the first time when a Star Wars plush toy has been used to indicate 'zero-gravity' by a team of astronauts on a mission. During a 2015 launch, R2-D2, another character from the Star Wars series, was used as a 'zero-gravity indicator' in the Russian Soyuz TMA-17M rocket.
Advertisement
Earlier, SpaceX had launched its first astronaut flight on May 30 after it sent NASA astronauts Doug Hurley and Bob Behnken to the ISS and then brought them back to Earth in August. Following an extensive study of flight data, NASA certified SpaceX as the first-ever commercial aerospace company to transport humans to and from space.
Advertisement
The Dragon capsule, including the Falcon 9 rocket and associated ground systems, is the first new crew spacecraft to be NASA-certified for regular flights with astronauts since the start of the space shuttle nearly 40 years ago.
02:35 IST, November 17th 2020