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Astronauts Michael Hopkins, Shannon Walker, Soichi Noguchi and Victor Glover, shared details about their experience traveling onboard Space Exploration Technologies Corp.’s (SpaceX) Crew Dragon capsule as part of their SpaceX Crew-1 mission for the space agency. The crew took to the skies late last year and returned earlier this month, becoming part of the first operational crewed mission to the International Space Station (ISS) from U.S. soil.

SpaceX Crew Dragon Performed ISS Port Maneuver Flawlessly Explains NASA Astronaut and Commander

The crew’s remarks came during a post-splashdown teleconference, during which they responded to answers from the press and social media users. It follows an earlier session in which Walker and Hopkins answered questions from SpaceX employees, with the event being hosted by SpaceX president Ms. Gwynne Shotwell.

During that event, astronaut Walker explained how her experience of liftoff in the Crew Dragon was different from flying onboard the Russian Soyuz. Back then, she commented on how the Dragon had longer hard g-forces since the Falcon 9 uses only two stages during the journey to the ISS.

In response to a question from Bill Harwood of CBS news asking about the differences between Dragon and the Soyuz, the astronaut shared more details about the g-forces during her trip, this time for her return to Earth.

According to Walker:

We “Successfully Stayed Ahead Of The Spacecraft” Explains NASA Astronaut Victor Glover

Astronaut Michael Hopkins, who commanded the Crew-1 mission, was full of praise for the SpaceX spaceship. According to him, the process of changing Crew Dragon’s port (the part of the ISS it’s joined to) was seamless and was the most memorable part of his experience.

According to him:

Astronaut Victor Glover, who piloted the Crew Dragon explained the differences between the spacecraft and a combat fighter aircraft in response to a follow-up from Harwood.

And then one that sticks out to me I think that was the port relocation. It was extremely impressive to me on how smoothly that port relocation went when we took Resilience and we undocked from the Forward docking port and we moved round to the Zenith docking port. It really surprises me. It doesn’t surprise me but man it was amazing that the first time that we’ve done this and it went according to the schedule. And usually, you see some changes to the schedule, you know a little late here, a little early there, but it just marched right down like it was written out. And so just like a sim [simulation] and so it was extremely impressive.

And one of the reasons I say I think that is such an important part is that there’s going to be a lot of vehicle traffic to the International Space Station over the next four five years particularly with these commercial capabilities coming up. And there’s going to be a need to move vehicles around. And so having this capability is going to be extremely important and I would say that was one of the highlights of the mission.

Summarizing his experience as “dynamic,” the astronaut stated:

The crew’s experience will prove important for the next flight of their spacecraft. This will be a private mission that will fly four civilians on a pleasure ride around Earth. Funded by billionaire Jared Isaacman, Crew Dragon Endeavour will take to the skies in September for the Inspiration4 mission.

Going back to DM-2, Bob and Doug gave us a lot of gauge about what that event was going to be like and it would come very quickly. And I think we expected it to come fast so we were ready. And that’s what I would say about the whole thing is that I expected it to be so dynamic and so challenging that the actual event was I think a little less than what I was expecting so it was enjoyable all around. Yeah, the high g loads it’s a good thing the g is going sort of into your chest, almost directly into your chest as opposed to head-to-toe which is what you experience in a fighter aircraft and that makes it hard to stay conscious. So going into your chest makes it a little easier to you know keep situational awareness but it makes it hard to breathe. So focus on your breath.