‘N SpaceX Dragon cargo ship made the autonomous disconnection from the International Space Station for the first time on Tuesday (January 12).
The historic event – the first unlocking by an unmanned US cargo ship – drove SpaceX’s CRS-21 Cargo Dragon away from the space port of the Harmony module at 09:05 EST (1405 GMT). Live views on NASA Television showed the spacecraft moving in orbit as it left the station while both spacecraft sailed high above the southern Atlantic Ocean.
“Godspeed, Cargo Dragon and the recovery team,” said NASA astronaut Victor Glover aboard the space station, where he monitored the spacecraft’s departure.
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It takes about 36 hours for the SpaceX Dragon to return to earth. The spacecraft is expected to splash in the Gulf of Mexico on Wednesday (January 13), although NASA and SpaceX will not broadcast the splash live. The spacecraft carries £ 5,200. (2,500 kilograms) scientific experiments and other equipment back to earth.
“Dragon will burn a bit at 19:37 EST [0200 GMT Thursday, Jan. 14] to begin its re-entry series in the Earth’s atmosphere. Dragon is expected to splash west of Tampa off the Florida coast at 8:27 p.m. EST [0327 GMT], “NASA said in a statement.
SpaceX’s upgraded Cargo Dragon capsule can carry 20% more cargo and experiments than previous versions of the craft, enabling increased science of each mission. Previously, all Dragon spacecraft were captured at the space station using the outpost’s robot Canadarm2, and then they would splash into the Pacific Ocean – far away from the science processing center at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida.
NASA said the new time frame for experimental analysis begins about four hours after the splash. NASA and SpaceX originally planned to launch the Cargo Dragon in the Atlantic Ocean, off the east coast of Florida, but bad weather in the fall zone caused a one-day delay.
The Dragon spacecraft launched from Launch Complex 39A on December 6 and arrived at the space station approximately 24 hours later. The mission was also the first time that two Dragons were captured simultaneously on the space station, as Expedition 64’s Crew Dragon is still moored at the orbiting complex to return them to Earth later this year. The dragon spacecraft launched in November with four astronauts on NASA’s Crew-1 mission.
Some of the experiments that return include investigations into cardiovascular cells, biofilms that can corrode stainless steel spacecraft structures, techniques to help with deep space emergency navigation, and several live mice that help with long-term studies on why astronauts change in space.
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