A new SpaceX Crew Dragon spacecraft is set to fly in April, as Elon Musk's company continues to give NASA transportation. A new capsule needs a new name, and the SpaceX Crew-4 team came up with an excellent one: Freedom. The name is a tribute to the history of space exploration in the U.S.
With the launch of SpaceX's Crew-4 mission, which comprises NASA astronauts Kjell Lindgren, Bob Hines, and Jessica Watkins, as well as European Space Agency (ESA) astronaut Samantha Cristoforetti, Crew Dragon Freedom will make its debut.
"FREEDOM!! Crew-4 will fly to the International Space Station in a new Dragon capsule named 'Freedom,'" Lindgren posted on Twitter. "The name celebrates a fundamental human right, and the industry and innovation that emanate from the unencumbered human spirit."
Lindgren then tweeted about NASA's Commercial Crew Program, which has restored astronaut launches back to American soil after years of depending on Russian spacecraft. The name Freedom honors the first American astronaut.
"Alan Shepard flew on Freedom 7 at the dawn of human spaceflight. We are honored to bring Freedom to a new generation!," Lindgren said.
Shepard was one of the first Mercury 7 astronauts, launching on NASA's Mercury-Redstone 3 suborbital mission on May 5, 1961. In light of the Cold War space rivalry between the U.S. and the then-Soviet Union, he named his spaceship "Freedom." (The "7" was due to the capsule being the seventh off the assembly line, but Shepard subsequently admitted that it was a mark of solidarity with his six other Mercury astronauts when questioned by the press.)
Freedom 7 is now in the care of the Smithsonian's National Air and Space Museum, which plans to display it in its new "Destination Moon" gallery when it opens later this year. The museum also houses the unflown Mercury spacecraft, which Shepard informally dubbed Freedom 7 II in an unsuccessful quest for a second Mercury mission.
Freedom, the SpaceX spacecraft, is the second time a crew has drawn inspiration from NASA's past while naming their new vehicle. After the Demo-2 crew's shared first voyage to orbit, the first Dragon to launch astronauts to the International Space Station was dubbed Endeavour.
Endeavour was also the name of the Apollo 15 command module that orbited the moon during the fourth lunar landing mission in 1971.
Resilience was the name given to the second Crew Dragon, which was first flown by SpaceX's Crew-1, as a homage to the NASA and SpaceX workers who worked through the Covid-19 pandemic to keep the mission moving forward.
Crew Dragon Endurance, which is now at the space station, represents the human spirit's tenacity as space exploration efforts move in new directions.
