Spaceflight Now reports that a SpaceX Dragon cargo ship “loaded with 7,000 pounds of supplies and equipment, including two add-on roll-out solar blankets, caught up with the International Space Station early Tuesday and moved in for a problem-free docking.” The Dragon was launched Monday from the Kennedy Space Center. The space station “is equipped with four primary solar array wings, two on each side of the power truss.” Solar cells “degrade over time and NASA is adding six IROSAs, at a cost of $103 million, to the existing power system.”
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Tag: Cargo Dragon
SpaceX Cargo Dragon Splashes Down Off Florida With ISS Payload
Aviation Week reported SpaceX’s “28th NASA-contracted Cargo Dragon resupply mission” to the ISS splashed down off the Florida coast on Friday “with a more than 3,600-lb. payload including science experiments.”
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SpaceX Cargo Dragon Departs ISS
Aviation Week reports that NASA’s 28th SpaceX-contracted Cargo Dragon resupply mission spacecraft “departed the International Space Station (ISS) June 29 with a 3,600-lb. return cargo of scientific research samples and hardware for a splashdown off the Florida coast.” The splashdown is “planned for June 30 at 10:30 a.m. EDT in the Atlantic Ocean off the coast of Jacksonville, Florida.” Once the freighter “is secured with NASA personnel on board a SpaceX recovery vessel, the time-sensitive science cargo can be offloaded and flown by helicopter to the Space Station Processing Facility at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center (KSC) in Cape Canaveral, Florida.” The CRS 28 Dragon “undocked from the ISS U.S. segment’s zenith Harmony docking port at 12:30 p.m. EDT in response to commands from SpaceX ground controllers in Hawthorne, California.”
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NASA Opts for SpaceX Dragon for Starliner Crew as Testing Continues on Boeing Capsule
Spaceflight Now reports, “The makeup of the SpaceX Crew-11 mission to the International Space Station was announced publicly Thursday evening and it includes three astronauts who were previously assigned to other missions. Leading the flight, scheduled for no earlier than July 2025, is NASA astronaut Zena Cardman. She will be joined by fellow NASA astronaut and pilot Mike Fincke, Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) astronaut Kimiya Yui and Roscosmos cosmonaut Oleg Platonov.”
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SpaceX Launches 32nd Space Station Resupply Mission for NASA
Spaceflight Now reports, “SpaceX launched an uncrewed Cargo Dragon to the International Space Station early Monday on a resupply mission with increased importance after a transportation mishap derailed a flight by another U.S. cargo ship. Liftoff from pad 39A at the Kennedy Space Center happened on Monday, April 21, at 4:15 a.m. EDT (0815 UTC).”
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Video
SpaceX Space Station Cargo Launch (Launch occurs at 59:44)
(Spaceflight Now; YouTube)