SpaceX’s first upgraded Cargo Dragon spacecraft left the International Space Station on Tuesday morning with more than 4,400 pounds of research samples and other equipment and splashed on Wednesday night in the Gulf of Mexico on the west coast of Florida.
Weak weather in the recovery zone prevented the Cargo Dragon from coming loose and returning to Earth on Monday.
The decoupling and splashing is the first return of a Cargo Dragon spacecraft near Florida, and it encompasses the first flight of SpaceX’s upgraded model of Dragon supply ships derived from the company’s human Crew Dragon vehicle.
SpaceX recovery teams will be on standby for parachute support around 8:27 PM EST Wednesday (0227 GMT Thursday) in the Gulf of Mexico west of Tampa. According to a NASA spokesman, the dragon returns to Earth with 2,002 kilograms of cargo.
The “Go Navigator” repair ship manned by SpaceX technicians and engineers will hoist the capsule aboard its deck after being splashed. The SpaceX team will download time-critical scientific specimens and place them on a helicopter overnight for a flight to the Kennedy Space Center.
According to NASA, the helicopter will arrive with the truck at Kennedy’s launch and landing facility, and the cargo will be transported by truck to the nearby space station processing facility.
Scientists there will receive the samples to begin their analyzes. After a quick look at the SSPF at Kennedy, some of the material will be sent to research teams in California, Texas, Massachusetts, Japan and elsewhere, NASA said.
SpaceX’s first upgraded Cargo Dragon spacecraft left the International Space Station on Tuesday morning with 4,400 pounds of research samples and other equipment, which was en route to the Gulf of Mexico off the west coast of Florida on Wednesday night. https://t.co/s6P0MTyNr1 pic.twitter.com/Vp4nZCEFjz
– Space Fly Now (@SpaceflightNow) 12 January 2021
The upgraded Cargo Dragons are targeting the Florida coast, closer to research facilities at Kennedy and SpaceX’s Dragon refurbishment site at the Cape Canaveral Space Force Station. Previous Dragon cargo flights have ended in landslides in the Pacific coast of Baja California.
The return of scientific specimens to Kennedy so soon after their return to space is back to the spacecraft program when missionary work came directly to the spacecraft in Florida.
“I am excited to finally see science return here again, because we can get these time-sensitive experiments in the lab faster than ever,” Jennifer Wahlberg, project manager of the Kennedy Space Center, said in a statement. “Sending science into space and then receiving it back on the runway was definitely something in the commute days we were really proud of, and it’s great to be back in that process.”
Experiments coming home aboard the Cargo Dragon on Monday include live mice that are part of the Rodent Research 23 study, which studies the function of arteries, veins and lymph structures in the eye and changes in the retina before and after space flight, according to NASA.
Scientists seek insight into whether these changes affect vision. At least 40 percent of astronauts experience visual impairment during long-haul flights, NASA says.
“Rodent Research-23 is designed to begin adapting responses to rodent gravity as quickly as possible, making it an ideal candidate for this flight,” said Jennifer Buchli, deputy chief scientist for the International Space Station program at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston, said.
There is also a biomedical experiment led by researchers at Stanford University to look at how microgravity affects cardiovascular cells, and an experiment developed by Japanese scientists that shows the growth of 3D organ buds from human stem cells in space.
Other experiments returning to Earth include a payload led by Texas State University researchers to identify bacterial genes used during biofilm growth. The investigation is investigating whether these biofilms can corrode stainless steel and evaluate the effectiveness of a silver-based disinfectant to help designers of future long-term space vehicles.
Material from a demonstration of fiber optic production technology also comes home on the Cargo Dragon. Scientists and engineers will examine the optical fiber material produced in the space station to see if it matches the predictions that fibers produced in space are ‘much better than those produced on Earth’, says NASA.
The upgraded Cargo Dragon spacecraft has more internal volume than SpaceX’s first generation Dragon cargo ship, which in 2020 led its last mission to the space station. It also has the double-powered locked capability of previous Dragon capsules and can hold up to 12 such lockers for return to Earth, adding more capacity to bring back frozen and chilled monsters.
“Using the previous Dragon spacecraft, it could take up to 48 hours for the capsule to hit the waters in the Pacific Ocean before returning to Long Beach, California. We started distributing the samples about four to five hours later, ” said Mary Walsh, the lead pilot of Kennedy’s Office for Research Integration. “Now we will return science earlier and hand it over to researchers, just four to nine hours after the splash.”
“The ability to get science back quickly is so important for space biology because we want to understand whether the effects we want to measure on an orbit are due to the microgravity or the stress that a participant or” can see a monster. during landing, ”said Kirt Costello, a scientist at NASA’s main space station program. “It is therefore a wonderful ability to return those to the Cape really quickly and have them handed over to our scientists.”
Before the Cargo Dragon was on its way again, the automatic cargo capsule pulled out of the space station on Tuesday at 09:05 EST (1405 GMT). The new Dragon design can automatically board and disembark at the station, while first-generation Dragon cargo ships have struggled through the station’s robotic arm.
The Cargo Dragon launched on top of a Falcon 9 rocket from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida on December 6. The capsule arrived at the space station the next day with an automatic coupling with a new docking port at the apex or on top of the Harmony module of the research post.
The Cargo Dragon joined SpaceX’s spacecraft Crew Dragon ‘Resilience’ moored to the space station, the first time two SpaceX vehicles were at the orbital laboratory at the same time.
Astronauts have opened shutters to the Cargo Dragon to unpack more than £ 6,000 worth of supplies and experiments, including a holiday party for the station’s seven staff members.
SpaceX’s Crew Dragon “Resilience” capsule arrived at the station on November 16 with astronauts Mike Hopkins, Victor Glover, Shannon Walker and Soichi Noguchi. The Crew Dragon Resilience spacecraft is moored at the front of the Harmony module.
Hopkins and his crew joined astronauts Kate Rubins and Russian cosmonauts Sergey Ryzhikov and Sergey Kud-Sverchkov at the space station, giving the research complex a long crew of seven for the first time.
The Cargo Dragon mission – SpaceX’s 21st reconnaissance flight to the space station contracted with NASA since 2012 – provided parts and supplies for the research laboratory’s new female-friendly toilet, live rodents and support equipment for biological experiments, and an upgraded catalytic response for the water treatment system.
The cargo mission also conducted an experiment called BioAsteroid to look at how microbes can help extract material on asteroids, and a study to help scientists learn more about how spacecraft affect cardiovascular cells and human brain organs, which provide insights on how microgravity affects the survival and metabolism of brain cells.
The capsule’s external cargo space has transported new commercial air to the space station for Nanoracks, a company in Houston that plans to use the new facility to host experiments, throw away junk and deploy small satellites.
According to SpaceX, the Cargo Dragon’s compartment under pressure can be reused five times. The hull without pressure is disposable, and each Cargo Dragon mission will fly a new one.
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