NASA depended on Russia to launch American astronauts to the International Space Station (ISS) for roughly a decade, after the U.S. Space Shuttle fleet was retired in 2011. NASA created the Commercial Crew Program to enable aerospace companies SpaceX and Boeing to each develop a spacecraft to launch rotational crewed missions. Boeing is still working on spacecraft testing and SpaceX made history in 2020 when it returned human spaceflight capabilities to the United States.
Netflix will release a new documentary about SpaceX’s first crewed spaceflight from American soil called –‘Return to Space.’ The documentary will premiere on April 7. Netflix released a trailer that features SpaceX founder Elon Musk and the historic voyage to the Space Station of NASA astronauts Robert Behnken and Douglas Hurley. “Earth is the cradle of humanity… We can’t stay in the cradle for ever,” says Musk in the trailer. Watch the trailer in the video linked below.
‘Return to Space’ is directed by the Oscar-winning duo Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi and Jimmy Chin; It is produced by Anna Barnes with executive producer Matthew Hamachek. The Netflix series description says it chronicles SpaceX’s Demo-2 mission which launched Behnken and Hurley atop a Falcon 9 rocket and Crew Dragon spacecraft on a four-month trip to the Space Station. It offers “[…] an intimate portrait of the engineers and astronauts chosen for the historic moment” and follows Behnken and Hurley and their families in the days leading up to launch. “Return To Space brings viewers along for their thrilling ride to the International Space Station, and into mission control with Musk and the SpaceX team as they bring them back to Earth for a dramatic splashdown return,” Netflix says.
To date, SpaceX has launched three crewed flights for NASA’s Commercial Crew Program and a fourth mission is scheduled to launch in April. The company also launched the first all-civilian flight to orbit the Earth in September 2021. Netflix also released a documentary about the historic private civilian spaceflight to orbit called –‘Countdown: Inspiration4 Mission To Space.’
Featured Image Source: SpaceX
About the Author
Evelyn Janeidy Arevalo
Evelyn J. Arevalo joined Tesmanian in 2019 to cover news as a Space Journalist and SpaceX Starbase Texas Correspondent. Evelyn is specialized in rocketry and space exploration. The main topics she covers are SpaceX and NASA.
