An upgraded version of SpaceX’s Dragon Cargo Freighter from Florida’s Kennedy Space Center on Sunday is packed with 2.2 tons of supplies and experiments, the first of at least nine re-flights to the International Space Station under a new NASA agreement.
The cargo capsule took off at the top of the 215-foot tall (65-meter) Falcon 9 rocket at 11:17:08 a.m. Sunday, while the Pad 39 exploded with 1.7 million pounds of thrust. Nine Merlin main engines.
The launch signaled the launch of SpaceX’s 21st operational response flight for the space station and the use of a new pay generation of the company’s Dragon cargo capsules. The first 20 flights spanned the period from 2012 to the beginning of this year, using the retired version of the Dragon spacecraft.
The second-generation dragon supply ship is based on SpaceX’s crew dragon vehicle designed to fly with astronauts. On the cargo capsule, SpaceX removed the crew-rated ship’s launch abort system and replaced the vehicle’s touchscreen display and seats with racks and freezers to keep supplies and experiments.
The cargo dragon Falcon 9 flew northeast on top of the rocket, flying with a rear stage booster after the previous three flights.
About a minute and a half into the mission, after the Falcon 9 surpassed the speed of sound and advanced into the atmosphere above, the booster stopped its engine and set off several hundred miles apart to begin the genealogy, targeting the SpaceX landing platform. Northeast of the Kennedy Space Center in the Atlantic Ocean.
A Falcon 9 rocket launched from the Kennedy Space Center at 11:17 a.m. EST (1617 GMT).
These are:
• 101st Falcon 9 flight
20 24th SpaceX launch of 2020
• 21 SpaceX space station cargo flight
1st Cargo Dragon Upgrade
128th launch from PadPad 39Ahttps: //t.co/FAMaoqlOTP pic.twitter.com/q3YllbTOEe– Now Spaceflight (Spaceflight Now) December 6, 2020
The second phase of the Falcon 9 fired a Merlin engine designed for firing in spaceless airless space, and fired for six minutes to inject the cargo dragon into orbit.
The first phase of the reusable 15-story Booster SpaceX’s floating drone moved about eight-and-a-half minutes after it was lifted off the spacecraft, completing its fourth space mission.
Moments later, the cargo dragon deployed from the upper stage of the rocket and opened its nose cone, revealing a sensitive navigation sensor, a port King Burt, and front thrusters for the planned 26-hour journey to the International Space Station.
The cargo Dragon spacecraft is packed with 6,553 pounds (2,972 kilograms) of equipment and research hardware, including a new commercial airlock developed and owned by Nanorex for connection to the space station.
There are also fresh food packages and non-board provisions for the space station’s seven-person crew.
According to SpaceX, the new cargo dragon spacecraft can carry 20 percent more cargo volume than previous dragon supply ships. The new cargo vehicle can stay on the space station for up to 75 days, more than twice as long as the first-generation Dragon spacecraft, said Sarah Wakere, director of spaceX’s Dragon mission management.
The Cargo Dragon can be used up to five times, an improvement to the three-flight design of the first-generation Dragon Cargo Capsule. The new spacecraft will dock autonomously with the space station. Past dragon cargo missions had to be captured by astronauts using the Canadian robot arm of the space station.
That change reduces the workload on the crew of the space station and makes the randomized profile of the cargo dragon almost identical to that of the crew dragon, but the docking port used by the new cargo dragon is way narrower than the attachment used by the first burting system. Pay Generation Dragon Cargo Capsule.
Northrop Grumman’s Cygnus supply ship is built to bulk from the robotic arm to the space station, providing transportation for bulkier items.
Separation from the dragon was confirmed.
SpaceX’s upgraded supply ship – with a Nanorex bishop airlock in its trunk – is set to arrive at the International Space Station at 1:30 p.m. EST (1830 GMT) Monday. Http://t.co/FAMaoqlOTP pic.twitter.com/fojxS5O6fX
– Now Spaceflight (Spaceflight Now) December 6, 2020
Upgraded cargo capsules will burst under the parachute in the Atlantic Ocean east of Florida, replacing the previous recovery zone in the Pacific Ocean west of Baja California.
The Dragon Recovery ships at Port Canaveral, Florida, have helipads that will be able to cut cargo and scientific samples from cargo dragons within hours instead of hours at the Kennedy Space Center, said Kirt Costello, chief scientist at NASA International. Space station.
“The ability to quickly acquire science is very important for space science because we want to understand whether the effects we are trying to measure on orbit are due to the state of microgravity or the stress that a participant or sample can see. On landing, ”Costello said. “So it’s a really new capability to get back to the cap really quickly and be handed over to our scientists.”
Cargo Dragons, like SpaceX’s crew dragons, will be renewed between missions inside the facility at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station. The splashdown in the Atlantic Ocean shortens travel time from the recovery zone to the spacecraft on the renewal site.
SpaceX says all upgraded cargo dragon missions will begin at Pad 39 in the Kennedy Space Center, the same facility that hosts the crew launch. Which allows ground teams to load last-minute supplies and time-sensitive experiments into the capsule using an access arm built for astronauts.
NASA signed a new cargo delivery agreement with SpaceX in 2016 for at least six upgraded cargo dragon space station flights. A NASA spokesman said in November that the agreement had been extended again to cover nine cargo dragon missions.
Following its successful launch on Sunday, Cargo Dragon will run a series of its Draco thrusters to fine-tune its route to the space station.
The cargo freighter will approach the space station from below, then fly a half circle to position above the station. The Cargo Dragon will be docking for the first time at Zenith, or Space-Facing, harbor on the station’s Harmony module at 1:30 p.m., Monday.
Once docked, the space station astronauts will open the hatches leading to the cargo dragon to start unpacking the devices.
The space station’s robotic arm will remove a commercial airlock or door from the cargo dragon’s trunk and place it on the peace module.
The bell-shaped Bishop Airlock, owned by Houston-based Nanorex, will move devices in and out of the space station, expanding to the same capacity currently provided by an Airlock inside the Japanese Kibo Lab module.
About five years ago, Nanorex identified the need for consumer and market demand for a larger Aerolock, and it could be opened a little more often than Kibo, said Bishop Airlock’s Nanorex project manager, Brock Howe.
So far, Nanorex has signed agreements with NASA, the European Space Agency and the Japanese robotics company GITAI to use the new Airlock to dispose of waste and conduct experiments. Other customers will be able to use Airlock to deploy smaller satellites.
The station’s robotic arm will periodically move the airlock to its home on the peace module. Plan Operations Plan allows astronauts to mount satellites and experiments inside the aerolock, before being removed by robotic hands to reveal payloads in the space atmosphere.
Bishop Airlock is about five times larger than Kibo Airlock. The new Aerolock also has external connections to hosts outside the space station.
“Scientists can use a lot of different environments, a lot of different parts, a lot of different parts, and scientists can use a lot of payload power and data capabilities – on-board. Which will really increase their ability to do some cool science. On-board ISS, ”Howe said.
Read our previous story for more information on Bishop Airlock.
Other items en route to the space station inside Cargo Dragon include additional and consumables for the research laboratory’s new woman-friendly toilet, support hardware for live rats and biological experiments, and an upgraded catalytic reactor for the water processing system.
An experiment on a cargo dragon mission called a biosteroid will look at how microbes can help in the mining material on asteroids.
“Biosteroids are an experiment to study whether economically interesting elements can be used from asteroid material, such as microorganisms, bacteria or fungi,” said Charles Cockley, a professor of astrobiology at the University of Edinburgh and chief investigator at BioEstroid. “It’s essential that we call what we call a biomining experiment, and we hope to see if we can use microorganisms to cater to things like rare earth elements and other elements that can be used to sustain the solar system throughout the world.”
The biosteroid experiment follows a similar investigation called Byrock, which showed how microorganisms from basalt rock can extract precious metals, a material that covers the Moon and Mars. Now scientists want to study whether a similar biomining setup can be used on asteroids.
Other payloads on the Cargo Dragon mission will help scientists learn more about how spaceflight affects vascular cells and human brain organoids, giving insights into how microgravity affects the survival and metabolism of brain cells.
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