Photo courtesy SpacexX
Elon Musk’s SpaceX is making a little bit of history this week with what is believed to be the first all-female crew involved the space recovery operations off the coast of Florida.
The operation was carried out Tuesday as part of SpaceX’s latest launch of the company’s of its Dragon spacecraft by one of its Falcon 9 rocket, marking the Dragon program’s 27th commercial resupply mission to the International Space Station.
The vessel, named Doug, is one of SpaceX’s two new multi-purpose recovery ships that are designed for the recovery of reusable payload fairings and rocket boosters.
The Dragon spacecraft is equipped with two drogue parachutes to stabilize the spacecraft as it re-enters earth’s atmosphere and four main parachutes that deploy prior to landing at sea.
Falcon 9’s first stage successfuly landed on the A Shortfall of Gravitas droneship.
The all-female crew is one of the first in commercial maritime operations and comes as the shipping industry is striving for more gender diversity, particularly at sea. According to 2021 study, women represent only 1.2% percent of the global seafarer workforce with little over 24,000 women serving.
In 2021, the Shipping Corporation of India (SCI) tanker Swarna Krishna set sail with all-female officers to mark International Women’s Day. In 2019, global towage operator Svitzer, part of A.P. Moller Maersk, hired its first all-female crew for one of its tugs in the Dominican Republic.
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