The SpaceX Dragon cargo spacecraft returned to Earth from the International Space Station Wednesday (Jan. 13), raining down off the coast of Florida for the first time ever.
The Dragon CRS-21 mission, the delivery of 21st SpaceX space station cargo for NASA, launched December 6, 2020, with 6,400 lbs. (2,903 kilograms) of science supplies and equipment for the Expedition 64 crew of seven. After a one-day delay due to bad weather at the shower belt, the independently upgraded vehicle exited the space station for the first time. hours Tuesday (January 12, and landed west of Tampa about 35 hours later, at 8:26 pm EST Wednesday, January 13 (0126 January 14 GMT).
While previous Dragon cargo missions have ended with parachute-supported splashdowns in the Minch, the newly upgraded version of the SpaceX cargo ship is designed to land in the Atlantic, closer to the Pacific. science processing center at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida.
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The CRS-21 mission was not only the first to land near Florida, but it was also the first to dock independently at, and disembark from, the Space Station Between -national. Dragons Cargo has previously relied on astronauts operating the station’s Canadarm2 artificial arm to engage the spacecraft and connect it to the orbiting laboratory.
Other space cargo delivery vehicles, such as the Cygnus Northrop Grumman spacecraft and the Japanese H-II Transport Vehicle, are deliberately destroyed at the end of their missions; space station astronauts fill the capsules with debris, then use Canadarm2 to send them to Earth, and they burn up in the atmosphere safely. SpaceX’s Dragon, however, is a realistic spacecraft designed to deliver science experiments back to Earth from the space station. The Dragon CRS-21 mission returned with more than 4,400 lbs. (2,000 kg) of “valuable scientific experiments and other cargo,” NASA officials said in a statement.
“The updated Dragon capsule used for this mission incorporates twice the capacity of a previous capsule’s power lock, allowing for a significant increase in the retrievable search for scientists, “NASA said. “Some scientists will get their research back quickly, four to nine hours after a shower.”
Some of the scientists on board include engineered heart rate, organoids grown from human cells, biofuels that can grind stainless steel, zero-g fiber optics and more.
SpaceX plans to launch its next Dragon cargo restart mission, CRS-22, in May this year. The company’s Crew Dragon capsule is currently suspended by the space station and is expected to return to Earth with the crew of four in May as well. The next release is Crew Dragon, which is expected to launch the Crew-2 mission with four other astronauts in March.
Email Hanneke Weitering at [email protected] or follow her on Twitter @hannekescience. Follow us on Twitter @Spacedotcom and on Facebook.