9.01.2021
A little over a month after it left Kennedy Space Center loaded with cargo and science experiments, an upgraded SpaceX Cargo Dragon capsule is slated to return to Earth via ocean splashdown Monday night.
This will be the first return of a cargo resupply spacecraft to the Atlantic Ocean.
The location of splashdown will be chosen closer to undocking from the International Space Station on Monday morning, but potential sites in the Atlantic are off the coasts of Cape Canaveral, Daytona, and Jacksonville. Unfortunately, it’s unlikely bystanders will be able to see anything.
“When it’s entering Earth’s atmosphere that’s hundreds of miles away so by the time it gets near us it’s already on the parachutes and there’s nothing to see. The flames are gone by then,” said local space photographer Ken Kremer. “It has to be within a few miles offshore in the daylight to actually see the splashdown.”
Splashing down off the coast of Florida enables quick transportation of the science aboard the capsule to Kennedy Space Center’s Space Station Processing Facility for faster processing.
NASA astronaut Kate Rubins will monitor the Dragon capsule undocking from the ISS Monday morning at 9:25 a.m. NASA will broadcast the departure on its website beginning at 9 a.m.
Dragon will fire its thrusters to move a safe distance from the station and then initiate a de-orbit burn to begin the re-entry sequence into Earth’s atmosphere.
NASA expects the spacecraft assisted by three parachutes will splash down around 9 p.m. Eastern time. SpaceX technicians will be on hand to retrieve the spacecraft and return it to Cape Canaveral.
Back at the space station, the crew onboard is preparing for upcoming spacewalks planned for Jan. 19 and 25. Commander Mike Hopkins and pilot Victor Glover, who both flew aboard a SpaceX Crew Dragon in November, will conduct both spacewalks. Among their tasks include updating high definition video and camera equipment.
Quelle: Florida Today
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Update: 12.01.2021
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SpaceX’s upgraded Cargo Dragon gears up for first reentry and splashdown
SpaceX’s upgraded Cargo Dragon spacecraft is just a day or two away from its first International Space Station (ISS) departure, Earth reentry, and ocean splashdown.
The uncrewed Dragon capsule (known as C208) and its expendable trunk section are currently scheduled to depart from the ISS no earlier than the morning (EST) of January 12th – set to be the first time an uncrewed US cargo spacecraft autonomously undocks from the orbital outpost. Previous US cargo vehicles – including SpaceX’s own Cargo Dragon – have relied on berthing, rendezvousing with the ISS and hovering close by while a giant robotic arm was used to capture and secure each spacecraft.
Cargo Dragon 2 wont be the first outright to do so: the uncrewed European ATV and Russian Progress vehicles both used the Russian Docking System (RDS) to deliver cargo to the ISS over the last two decades. However, Dragon’s CRS-21 departure will be the first time an uncrewed cargo spacecraft completes a full mission with the help of NASA’s new International Docking Adapter (IDA), as well as an IDA’s third round-trip use ever.
As early as Tuesday, January 12th, Cargo Dragon capsule C208 is scheduled to reenter Earth’s atmosphere and splash down in the ocean for the first time. (NASA)
In fact, SpaceX is solely responsible for the four total uses of the Space Station’s twin IDA ports – both fittingly delivered by Cargo Dragons in 2016 and 2019. In March 2019, Crew Dragon – flying without astronauts on its Demo-1 mission – became the first spacecraft ever to autonomously dock with and undock from an IDA port. In May and August 2020, a separate Crew Dragon spacecraft repeated the feat, autonomously docking and undocking with two NASA astronauts onboard.
SpaceX’s Demo-1 Crew Dragon became the first spacecraft to successfully use NASA’s International Docking Adapter in March 2019. (Oleg Kononenko)
Crew Dragon C206 became the second to dock with IDA – and the first with astronauts aboard – around 14 months later. (NASA)
Crew Dragon C207 (right) became the third in November 2020, followed by Cargo Dragon C208 (left) less than a month later. (NASA)
In November 2020, SpaceX launched Crew Dragon on its first operational ferry mission with four astronauts. The spacecraft safely docked to the ISS and is scheduled to remain there until at least March or April 2021. Most recently, SpaceX launched its first Cargo Dragon 2 on December 6th, 2020, and the spacecraft docked without issue a day later. Now scheduled to undock as early as January 12th, a successful departure, reentry, and splashdown will truly mark the start of a new era of autonomous SpaceX spacecraft.
Cargo Dragon 1 spacecraft were manually captured and berthed by ISS astronauts with Canadarm2. (NASA)
Unlike the largely manual berthing method used by Japanese HTV, Orbital ATK Cygnus, and SpaceX Cargo Dragon spacecraft, SpaceX’s Crew Dragon and Cargo Dragon 2 vehicles took advantage of IDA’s mechanical differences to heavily automate the cargo and crew delivery process. Using LiDAR, cameras, complex software, SpaceX’s new Dragons effectively dock themselves, ultimately requiring less training and work for the station astronauts that would otherwise need to manually support berthing operations.
Used to support refrigerated or otherwise power-intensive cargo, Cargo Dragon 2 features twice as many “powered lockers” as its predecessor and is scheduled to return an impressive ~2360 kg (5200 lb) of cargo – including dozens of science experiments – to Earth. More than a decade after Dragon became the first private spacecraft to successfully reenter Earth’s atmosphere, Cargo Dragon is still the only spacecraft in the world capable of delivering substantial cargo from Earth to orbit and from orbit to Earth.
An artist’s rendering of a Crew Dragon capsule reentering Earth’s atmosphere. (SpaceX)
After detaching from its expendable trunk section and reentering Earth’s atmosphere, Cargo Dragon C208 will also become the first cargo spacecraft to splash down in the Atlantic Ocean or Gulf of Mexico thanks to SpaceX’s decision to consolidate its California and Florida Dragon recovery operations on the East Coast.
Also used to recover Crew Dragons, SpaceX ship GO Searcher departed Port Canaveral for its central role in CRS-21’s imminent splashdown. Once Cargo Dragon C208 splashes down at one of four available recovery zones, SpaceX recovery teams will grab and secure the spacecraft and open its hatch. Uniquely time-sensitive cargo can then be transferred to a waiting helicopter for an unprecedentedly rapid return to researchers back on land,
Stay tuned for SpaceX and NASA’s live coverage of Cargo Dragon 2’s first ISS departure and recovery on January 12th or 13th.
Cargo Dragon heads for splashdown off Florida’s west coast
SpaceX’s first upgraded Cargo Dragon spaceship departed the International Space Station Tuesday morning with more than 4,400 pounds of research specimens and other equipment, heading for splashdown Wednesday night in the Gulf of Mexico off the west coast of Florida.
Poor weather in the recovery zone prevented the Cargo Dragon from undocking and returning to Earth Monday.
The undocking and splashdown mark the first return of a Cargo Dragon spacecraft near Florida, and it wraps up the first flight of SpaceX’s upgraded model of Dragon supply ships derived from the company’s human-rated Crew Dragon vehicle.
SpaceX recovery teams will be on standby for the parachute-assisted splashdown around 8:27 p.m. EST Wednesday (0227 GMT Thursday) in the Gulf of Mexico west of Tampa. The Dragon is returning to Earth with 4,414 pounds, or 2,002 kilograms, of cargo, according to a NASA spokesperson.
The “Go Navigator” recovery ship staffed by SpaceX technicians and engineers will hoist the capsule onboard its deck after splashdown. The SpaceX team will unload time-critical science specimens and put them on a helicopter for a flight to the Kennedy Space Center overnight.
The helicopter will arrive at Kennedy’s Launch and Landing Facility, and the cargo will be transported to the nearby Space Station Processing Facility by truck, according to NASA.
Scientists there will receive the specimens to begin their analyses. After a quick look inside the SSPF at Kennedy, some of the materials will be shipped to research teams in California, Texas, Massachusetts, Japan, and other locations, NASA said.
The upgraded Cargo Dragons target splashdowns near the Florida coast, closer to research facilities at Kennedy and SpaceX’s Dragon refurbishment site at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station. Previous Dragon cargo flights ended with splashdowns in the Pacific Ocean off the coast of Baja California.
The return of science specimens to Kennedy so quickly after their return to space harkens back to the space shuttle program, when missions brought come cargo directly to the Florida spaceport.
“I am excited to finally see science returning here again because we can get these time sensitive experiments into the lab faster than ever,” said Jennifer Wahlberg, Kennedy Space Center utilization project manager, in a statement. “Sending science up to space and then receiving it again on the runway was definitely something in the shuttle days that we really took pride in, and being able to rejoin that process is great.”
Experiments coming home aboard the Cargo Dragon Monday include live mice that are part of the Rodent Research 23 investigation, which studies the function of arteries, veins, and lymphatic structures in the eye and changes in the retina before and after spaceflight, according to NASA.
Scientists are seeking insights about whether these changes affect eyesight. At least 40 percent of astronauts experience vision impairment on long-duration spaceflights, NASA says.
“Rodent Research-23 was designed to start studying rodent gravity readaptation responses 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.
There is also a biomedical experiment led by researchers at Stanford University looking at how microgravity affects cardiovascular cells, and an experiment developed by Japanese scientists demonstrating the growth of 3D organ buds from human stem cells in space.
Other experiments returning to Earth include a payload led by researchers at Texas State University seeking to identify bacterial genes used during biofilm growth. The investigation examines whether these biofilms can corrode stainless steel, and evaluates the effectiveness of a silver-based disinfectant, to help designers of future long-duration space vehicles.
Materials from a fiber optic production technology demonstration are also coming home on the Cargo Dragon. Scientists and engineers will examine the fiber optic materials manufactured on the space station to see if they match predictions that fibers produced in space have “far superior qualities to those produced on Earth,” NASA says.
The upgraded Cargo Dragon spacecraft has more internal volume than SpaceX’s first-generation Dragon cargo ship, which conducted its last mission to the space station in 2020. It also has double the powered locked capability than previous Dragon capsules, and can support up to 12 such lockers for return to Earth, adding more capacity to bring back frozen and refrigerated samples.
“Using the previous Dragon spacecraft, it could take up to 48 hours from the time the capsule hits the water in the Pacific Ocean for it to be back in Long Beach, California. We then started distributing those samples about four to five hours after that,,” said Mary Walsh, Kennedy’s Research Integration Office utilization flight lead. “Now we are going to have early return science in hand and turn it over to researchers at just four to nine hours after splashdown.”
“That ability to get science back quickly is so important for space biology because we want to understand whether the effects that we’re trying to measure on orbit are due to the microgravity condition or due to the stress that a participant or a sample might see on landing,” said Kirt Costello, NASA’s chief space station program scientist. “So having those returned to the Cape really quickly and handed over to our scientists is a great new capability.”
Before the Cargo Dragon heads for re-entry, the automated cargo capsule undocked from the space station at 9:05 a.m. EST (1405 GMT) Tuesday. The new Dragon design can automatically dock and undock at the station, while the first-generation Dragon cargo freighters were grappled by the station’s robotic arm.
The Cargo Dragon launched Dec. 6 from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida on top of a Falcon 9 rocket. The capsule arrived at the space station the next day with an automated linkup with a new docking port on the zenith, or top-facing, side of the research outpost’s Harmony module.
The Cargo Dragon joined SpaceX’s Crew Dragon “Resilience” spacecraft docked at the space station, the first time two SpaceX vehicles have been at the orbiting lab at the same time.
Astronauts opened hatches to the Cargo Dragon to begin unpacking more than 6,000 pounds of provisions and experiments, including a holiday feast for the station’s seven-person crew.
SpaceX’s Crew Dragon “Resilience” capsule arrived at the station Nov. 16 with astronauts Mike Hopkins, Victor Glover, Shannon Walker, and Soichi Noguchi. The Crew Dragon Resilience spacecraft is docked to the forward end of the Harmony module.
Hopkins and his crewmates joined NASA astronaut Kate Rubins and Russian cosmonauts Sergey Ryzhikov and Sergey Kud-Sverchkov on the space station, giving the research complex a long-duration crew of seven for the first time.
The Cargo Dragon mission — SpaceX’s 21st resupply flight to the space station under contract to NASA since 2012 — delivered spares and consumables for the research lab’s new female-friendly toilet, live rodents and support hardware for biological experiments, and an upgraded catalytic reactor for the water processing system.
The cargo mission also carried an experiment named BioAsteroid to look at how microbes might assist in mining material on asteroids, and an investigation to help scientists learn more about how spaceflight affects cardiovascular cells and human brain organoids, yielding insights into how microgravity impacts the survival and metabolism of brain cells.
The capsule’s external cargo bay carried a new commercial airlock to the space station for Nanoracks, a Houston-based company that plans to use the new facility to host experiments, dispose of trash, and deploy small satellites.
The Cargo Dragon’s pressurized compartment can be reused five times, according to SpaceX. The unpressurized trunk is disposable, and a new one will fly on each Cargo Dragon mission.
Quelle: SN
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Update: 14.01.2021
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SpaceX Cargo Dragon successfully splashes down off coast of Tampa
After weather prevented the SpaceX Cargo Dragon capsule from splashing down in the Atlantic, the spacecraft successfully descended into the calmer Gulf waters off the coast of Tampa Wednesday evening.
This marks the first return of a cargo resupply spacecraft off the coast of Florida.
After the spacecraft completed a de-orbit burn, it re-entered the Earth's atmosphere traveling faster than the speed of sound. The capsule's four main parachutes deployed enabling Dragon to gently splashdown at 15 miles per hour one minute earlier than scheduled at 8:26 p.m.
The spacecraft carried more than 4,400 pounds of scientific experiments and other cargo back to Earth from the International Space Station.
Dragon's upgraded and expanded cargo area allowed more than 30 payloads sponsored by the ISS U.S. National Laboratory to make the return journey.
Splashing down off the coast of Florida enables the time-sensitive science experiments to travel back to Kennedy Space Center and into the hands of researchers within hours.
A helicopter was standing by to rush the science payloads to Kennedy's Space Station Processing Facility.
Some of the samples returning include live mice used to study the function of arteries, veins and lymphatic system in the eye and changes in the retina before and after spaceflight. At least 40% of astronauts experience vision problems on long duration spaceflights.
Any remaining scientific cargo will come back either in a second helicopter load or stay aboard the boat and be removed at the port.
Technicians aboard the SpaceX recovery ship Go Navigator were on hand to retrieve the spacecraft and return it to Port Canaveral where it will arrive several days later.
Quelle: Florida Today