NASA astronaut on SpaceX Crew Dragon return: ‘Sounded like an animal’
Photo by Bill Ingalls / NASA
As NASA astronauts Bob Behnken and Doug Hurley careened to Earth inside SpaceX’s Crew Dragon capsule on Sunday, the two said that the vehicle truly came “alive” when it plunged through Earth’s atmosphere. The capsule vibrated, jolted, and roared while the surrounding air heated up and scorched the outside of the vehicle — and the astronauts got it all on tape.
“I did record some audio of it, but it doesn’t sound like a machine. It sounds like an animal coming through the atmosphere with all the puffs that are happening from the thrusters and the atmospheric noise,” Behnken said during a press conference following the landing. “It just continues to gain magnitude as you descend down through the atmosphere.”