When SpaceX launched its Crew Dragon spacecraft “The Resilience” this past weekend, it had a special crew member: Baby Yoda!
There is an astronaut tradition of using a toy or stuffed animal as a “zero-g indicator,” to mark the moment astronauts lose gravity. For Sunday’s launch, the crew chose a Baby Yoda plush doll, to celebrate “The Child” character from the Star Wars show “The Mandalorian.”
In video from the flight (shown below), the doll can be seen floating around during the launch, and in a second video, he is seen floating around the cabin.
This isn’t the first time a Star Wars toy has been used as a “zero-g indicator.” NASA astronaut Kjell Lindgren, a Star Wars fan who once convinced other astronauts to dress like Jedi Knights for a NASA promotional poster, used an R2-D2 toy as his “zero-g indicator” during a 2015 launch.
“As you can see live, they have now revealed to us the zero-g indicator and it looks like a little baby Yoda!” SpaceX engineer Jessica Anderson says in the video.
Here are the videos from the SpaceX flight.
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