SpaceX launched an unmanned Dragon cargo ship Monday evening, an election eve flight to deliver three tons of crew supplies, scientific materials and other equipment to the International Space Station, including an unusual wooden satellite, a monitor of solar wind and vacation rates for the laboratory crew. .
The Dragon’s Falcon 9 rocket lifted off from Kennedy Space Center’s historic Launch Pad 39A at 9:29 p.m. EST, lighting up the night sky for miles around as it soared to the top of a 1.7 million surge of books.
NASA/SpaceX
After propelling the rocket out of the dense lower atmosphere, the first stage, making its fifth flight, lifted off, reversed course, and returned to a target landing at the Cape Canaveral space station while the second stage continued its climb towards space. .
The landing marked SpaceX’s 57th successful booster recovery at Florida Space Force Station and its 363rd overall, including California flights and drone landings.
Space flight now
Just under 10 minutes after liftoff, the vacuum-optimized engine that powered the Falcon 9’s second stage shut down, and a minute later the Dragon was released to fly autonomously. If all goes well, it will catch up with the space station Tuesday morning and dock at the laboratory’s forward port at 10:15 a.m.
One of the first items on the agenda is a test Friday to determine the Cargo Dragon’s ability to slightly increase the space station’s orbit using its rear-facing thrusters. The ISS is regularly reenergized by Russian Progress cargo ships and Northrop Grumman Cygnus cargo ships, but Friday’s test will be a first for SpaceX.
The California rocket maker is under contract with NASA to build a kind of powerful space tug that can be used to safely return the ISS to the atmosphere when the laboratory complex is decommissioned by 2030. The vehicle is necessary to ensure that the station is dispersed across an expanse of ocean well away from populated areas and shipping lanes.
During the test on Friday, the Cargo Dragon’s rear thrusters will operate for approximately 12 minutes.
“The data we will collect during this reboost and attitude control demonstration will be very useful, informing SpaceX’s analyzes of system performance,” said Jared Metter, SpaceX director of flight reliability. “This data will lead to future capabilities, including the American deorbit vehicle.”
Reboost aside, the Cargo Dragon is loaded with just over 6,000 pounds of equipment and supplies, including 2,022 pounds of scientific equipment, 2,119 pounds of crew clothing, food and other supplies, 377 pounds of spacewalk equipment, 525 pounds of space station equipment, and 44 pounds of computer equipment.
One of the most unusual payloads: Lignosat, a small wooden satellite using a frame of magnolia panels constructed by researchers at Kyoto University in Japan and Tokyo-based forestry company Sumitomo.
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“Although some of you might think that wood in space seems a bit counterintuitive, the researchers hope that this investigation will demonstrate that a wooden satellite can be more durable and less environmentally polluting than conventional ones. conventional satellites,” said Meghan Everett, ISS deputy project scientist. .
“The main goal here is to determine whether wood can be used in space, and to do this, researchers will measure the temperature and deformation of the wooden structure and see how they might change in the vacuum environment of space with atomic oxygen and radiation conditions too.”
As with all station-bound Dragon freighters, crew supplies include fresh food and special treats for holiday meals.
Bill Spetch, ISS Operations and Integration Manager, said the “food kit” includes “citrus fruits, apples, sweet onions, blueberries, radishes, etc.” ”, as well as lobster, crab and quail for holiday meals. A variety of cheeses are on board as well as fresh coffee and personal items requested by each crew member.
Mounted in the unpressurized section of the Dragon’s trunk is the Coronal Diagnostic Experiment, or CODEX, an instrument that will be mounted outside the space station to learn more about how charged particles in the solar wind are heated to millions of degrees and accelerated to enormous speeds, affecting Earth’s space environment and the rest of the solar system.
Inside the station, astronauts will have a variety of new experiments and instruments to use and monitor, including one called ARTEMOSS that will examine how Antarctic moss tolerates space radiation and the microgravity environment to learn more about how plants could be used in future life support. systems.
The European Space Agency is launching a space exposure experiment to learn more about how high-tech materials respond to prolonged exposure to a weightless environment, as well as another experiment to study how organic samples degrade when exposed to unfiltered ultraviolet light from the sun.
And in an experiment that could be particularly useful to future astronauts, a small device called Nanolab Astrobeat, provided by Malta’s College of Arts, Science and Technology, will test cold welding technology that could prove useful for repair leaks or other interior damage. a spaceship.
The Cargo Dragon is expected to remain docked at the space station for about a month before returning to Earth with station components in need of refurbishment, trash and other items no longer needed.
