SPACE reported that SpaceX Dragon “has set multiple American spaceflight records during its latest mission, a robotic resupply run to the International Space Station (ISS) for NASA that lifted off on Monday (June 5) and arrived at the orbiting lab Tuesday morning (June 6).” This is the 38th mission “to the ISS to date for a SpaceX capsule, besting the 37 such flights that NASA’s space shuttle orbiters racked up, SpaceX noted on Twitter Wednesday (June 7).” SpaceX’s Dragon 2 “is the latest iteration of the reusable capsule, which SpaceX began flying in 2020.” Crew Dragon “has now flown 10 astronaut missions, most of them six-month trips to the ISS for NASA.”
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Tag: Dragon
SpaceX Dragon Cargo Ship Lands Off of Florida Coast
SPACE reports that the Dragon CRS-24 “cargo ship splashed down today (Jan. 24) in the Atlantic Ocean at 4:05 p.m. EST (2105 GMT), off the coast of Florida near Panama City.” The SpaceX cargo ship “returned nearly 5,000 pounds (2,267 kilograms) of science to Earth, including a ‘cytoskeleton’ that studies cell signaling in humans, and returning a 12-year-old light imaging microscope being retired after more than a decade of use in orbit.”
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SpaceX Cargo Dragon Capsule Undocks from ISS
SPACE reports that at 9:05 a.m EST Tuesday, a SpaceX Cargo Dragon capsule conducted “its first-ever autonomous undocking from” the ISS. It “will take about 36 hours for the SpaceX Dragon to return to Earth. The spacecraft is expected to splash down in the Gulf of Mexico on Wednesday (Jan. 13), though NASA and SpaceX will not broadcast the splashdown live.” NASA said in a statement, “Dragon will conduct a deorbit burn at 7:37 p.m. EST to begin its re-entry sequence into Earth’s atmosphere. Dragon is expected to splash down west of Tampa off the Florida coast about 8:27 p.m. EST.”
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NASA Purchases Five More Dragon Missions from SpaceX
Spaceflight Now reported that NASA “says it plans to buy five more crew rotation missions on SpaceX’s fleet of Dragon spaceships, bringing SpaceX’s contract with the space agency to 14 operational astronaut launches, likely enough to keep the International Space Station staffed through 2030.” SpaceX and The Boeing Company are to alternate NASA astronaut missions “every six months once the agency certifies Boeing’s Starliner capsule for the job.”
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