Moscow. July 8. INTERFAX.RU – The US company SpaceX's Cargo Dragon reusable spacecraft on Thursday should undock from the International Space Station (ISS) and two days after deorbiting it will splash down in the Atlantic Ocean off the coast of Florida, according to the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. USA (NASA).
Undocking of the spacecraft from the American segment of the ISS – the Harmony module is planned to be carried out at 10:35 am US East Coast time (17:35 Moscow time). After the spacecraft has been de-orbited, its descent capsule will have to splash down in the Atlantic with the help of a parachute system.
Initially, undocking was supposed to take place on July 6, but was postponed to July 7 and then to July 8. The postponement was caused by extreme weather conditions off the coast of Florida due to tropical storm Elsa.
Cargo Dragon will deliver more than 2.4 tons of cargo to Earth, including the results of scientific experiments carried out on the ISS.
It is currently the only ISS supply spacecraft capable of returning cargo to Earth.
In total, the Cargo Dragon spacecraft stayed on the ISS for a month. It was launched into orbit on June 3 by SpaceX's Falcon 9 launch vehicle from the Cape Canaveral launch site in Florida. Two days later, on June 5, it successfully docked with the ISS, delivering to the station more than three tons of food, as well as equipment and materials for conducting up to 250 scientific experiments by the station's crew. In particular, the spacecraft brought two new, more powerful IROSA solar panels in the unpressurized compartment, which astronauts installed and deployed at the station in June during three spacewalks.
This is the 22nd flight of SpaceX's “truck” to the ISS and the second mission of its modified version (Cargo Dragon 2), which is now capable of delivering 20% more cargo to the ISS, and can also autonomously dock with the station without the traditional grab by the manipulator arm. Canadarm2 for subsequent mooring, like previous ships.
The new cargo ship is designed for five flights to the ISS and return to Earth instead of three in the Cargo Dragon 1 variants. It can remain in the station for 75 days, compared with 40 days of the previous “truck”.
The launch of the ships in the Cargo Dragon 2 version is carried out under the second contract between NASA and SpaceX to supply the station.
Under the first contract, from October 2012 to March 2020, SpaceX carried out 20 launches of Cargo Dragon cargo ships to the ISS. One of them (in 2015) ended in failure due to the crash of the Falcon 9 launch vehicle.
On July 2, the Progress MS-17 transport cargo vehicle docked with the ISS with a supply of fuel, water and other cargo. The “Truck” docked to the “Search” module of the ISS Russian Segment.
Currently, the ISS crew consists of Roskosmos cosmonauts Oleg Novitsky and Pyotr Dubrov and NASA astronaut Mark Vande Hai, who arrived on the ISS on April 9 on the Soyuz MS-18 spacecraft, and also arrived on the ISS on the Crew Dragon-2 spacecraft on April 24 NASA astronauts Megan MacArthur and Shane Kimbrough; European Space Agency (ESA) astronaut Thomas Pesce; and JAXA astronaut Akihiko Hoshide.
