The next crew of astronauts from the space station could be the last to splash down in the ocean near the U.S. East Coast.
The Crew Dragon Crew-9 mission with astronauts is scheduled to launch to the International Space Station no earlier than August 18, possibly becoming the last NASA-led ISS mission to arrive in the Atlantic Ocean aboard Crew Dragon.
Recurring problems with large pieces of Dragon debris — the “trunks” that store fuel and electrical supplies — have repeatedly crashed in areas ranging from Australia to North Carolina. One measure to address that problem will be to task future spacecraft after Crew-9, perhaps as early as Crew-10, with splashing down on the U.S. Pacific coast, SpaceX said at a news conference today (July 26).
“What we’re going to do is we’re going to implement a software change to complete the deorbit burn before we jettison the trunk, like we did with Dragon-1, and then the trunk will intentionally land. […] “We’re going to move a Dragon recovery ship to the Pacific next year,” Sarah Walker, SpaceX’s director of Dragon mission management, said during the live briefing. “To make that change possible, we’re going to move a Dragon recovery ship to the Pacific next year.”
Related: SpaceX launches to ISS face independent NASA review after rare Falcon 9 rocket failure
four people in white spacesuits smiling and giving thumbs up
SpaceX Crew-9 astronauts aboard the International Space Station. From left, Mission Specialist Alexsandr Gorbunov (Roscosmos), Pilot Nick Hague (NASA), Commander Zena Cardman (NASA), and Mission Specialist Stephanie Wilson (NASA). (Image credit: NASA)
In addition to having less space debris, the Pacific coast tends to be less prone to extreme weather events and hurricanes, potentially adding more predictability to planning for the end of crewed missions, Walker noted.
The four astronauts aboard Crew-9 include Commander Zena Cardman (NASA), Pilot Nick Hague (NASA), Mission Specialist Stephanie Wilson (NASA), and Mission Specialist Alexsandr Gorbunov (Roscosmos).
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The Crew-9 crew won’t be able to fly to space until NASA re-approves the Falcon 9 to launch to the ISS, but everything is currently on track for an August 18 launch. The Falcon 9 rocket’s second stage failed on July 11 due to an oxygen leak while launching a Starlink satellite. SpaceX said it has resolved the issue with the Federal Aviation Administration and plans to launch more missions as early as Saturday (July 27).
NASA said the FAA-approved fixes will be implemented before the space agency’s Program Control Board for Crew-9, but the agency has been part of SpaceX’s investigation from the beginning and is confident in the work done so far. “We understand exactly what they did,” NASA said. [SpaceX] “We did it,” Steve Stich, NASA’s commercial crew program manager, said during the briefing.
It’s been a busy month for the ISS, as Boeing Starliner engineers continue to investigate problems that arose during the docking of the first astronaut test mission on June 5. Ground tests showed problems with thruster isolation and propulsion flow that likely affected the approach to the ISS, a press conference said yesterday (July 25).
Starliner’s two astronauts, NASA’s Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams, have completed more than 50 days of the 10-day mission, and a landing date has not yet been set as Boeing and NASA continue to investigate thruster issues and helium leaks in the propulsion system. Those issues will need to be resolved before Starliner’s six-month operational missions to the ISS, which will begin as early as 2025.
Wilmore and Williams have been living with a four-month supply of supplies aboard the ISS before their return, which will occur sometime before Crew-9 arrives at the ISS. They will finally receive their belongings aboard a Northrop Grumman Cygnus cargo ship bound for the ISS aboard the Falcon 9, scheduled for Aug. 3 at the earliest, because their suitcases had to be removed at the last minute from CFT’s Starliner to ship a critical piece of the ISS’s water system.
“We may face a number of challenges that may result in a shortage of supplies on board, for example if a cargo flight fails. [delays]”, ISS program manager Dana Weigel told Space.com during the press conference, explaining why the reserve exists.
The stockpile includes clothing, food, water, oxygen, nitrogen and other essential items. “We had a lot of generic supplies on board,” Weigel noted. “So we asked Butch and Suni to use them.”
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