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In Dragon\u2019s trunk was NASA\u2019s Ecosystem Spaceborne Thermal Radiometer Experiment (ECOSTRESS), an ecological research payload that was extracted and mounted outside the space station during Dragon\u2019s stay \u2013 and is now set to monitor the temperature of plant life on Earth\u2019s surface.<\/p>\n
Dragon\u2019s Trunk also transported a replacement Latching End Effector (LEE) for the space station\u2019s CanadArm2 robotic arm.<\/p>\n
It is from a current LEE on the SSRMS that will release Dragon to begin the journey home.<\/p>\n
On Thursday, ISS Partners and mission managers polled \u201cgo\u201d for release thanks to favorable weather conditions forecast in the splashdown zone.<\/p>\n
Dragon\u2019s hatch was closed early Friday around 4 a.m. Eastern time. Robotic ground controllers then used the robotic arm to detach Dragon from the Earth-facing port of the Harmony module around 6:30 a.m. Eastern time and will maneuver Dragon into the release position.<\/p>\n
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With Expedition 56 Flight Engineer Serena Au\u00f1\u00f3n-Chancellor of NASA monitoring Dragon\u2019s systems, the ground controllers released Dragon from the SSRMS at 12:38 p.m. Eastern time.<\/p>\n
Once the LEE snares were released, the SSRMS was backed away from Dragon as the craft held its position at the 10 meter mark.<\/p>\n
Once the Station\u2019s arm was cleared to a safe distance, Dragon conducted a series of three small thruster firing departure burns that moves the capsule down the R-Bar (Radial Vector) and away from the International Space Station toward Earth (when viewed in relation to ISS orientation and Dragon movements with respect to Earth).<\/p>\n
During the initial stage of departure, Dragon was under the control of its own computer programming, with the Station crew and controllers at Mission Control Houston in Texas for NASA having primary control over the spacecraft.<\/p>\n
As Dragon pushed down the R-Bar, the largest of the three thruster departure burns imparted enough Delta Velocity (Delta-V) change to Dragon to push it outside of the approach ellipsoid.<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.nasaspaceflight.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/01\/2018-01-13-104848-499x350.jpg\")
<\/p>\nISS departure zone<\/p>\n
The approach ellipsoid is a 4 km by 2 km oval-shaped region around the International Space Station that extends 2 km in front of and 2 kilometers behind the ISS along the velocity vector (V-Bar) and 1 km above and 1 km below the Station along the R-Bar.<\/p>\n
Once Dragon cleared the approach ellipsoid 1 km below the ISS, primary control of the vehicle shifted from NASA to SpaceX controllers in Hawthorne, California.<\/p>\n
Dragon conducted several hours of free flight activities as controllers at Mission Control SpaceX prepared the vehicle for the end of its mission.<\/p>\n
This includes the closure of the Guidance Navigation and Control (GNC) bay door on Dragon, creating a perfect thermal protection seal around the entirety of Dragon for entry.<\/p>\n
At 5:23 p.m. Eastern time, SpaceX flight controllers at Hawthorne, California commanded Dragon\u2019s Draco thrusters to fire for 12 minutes and 53 seconds \u2013 retrograde \u2013 in the deorbit burn that enabled Dragon to slip out of orbit for its descent back to Earth.<\/p>\n
Following the deorbit burn, the umbilicals between Dragon and her external payload trunk were severed ahead of the trunk\u2019s separation from Dragon itself.<\/p>\n
Dragon then placed its heat shield out in front in preparation for Entry Interface (EI) \u2013 the moment Dragon reached the first traces of Earth\u2019s upper atmosphere.<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.nasaspaceflight.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/01\/2018-01-13-043511.jpg\")
<\/p>\nDragon re-entry, via SpaceX<\/p>\n
Once EI occurred, Dragon\u2019s Thermal Protection System (TPS) protected it from the searing hot temperatures of reentry formed as the air molecules around Dragon are instantly heated and turned to plasma under the friction created by Dragon\u2019s high velocity.<\/p>\n
Dragon\u2019s primary heat shield, called PICA-X, is based on a proprietary variant of NASA\u2019s Phenolic Impregnated Carbon Ablator (PICA) material and is designed to protect Dragon during atmospheric re-entry.<\/p>\n
PICA-X is robust enough to protect Dragon not only during ISS return missions but also during high-velocity returns from Lunar and Martian destinations.<\/p>\n
Unlike the Dragon capsule, the Dragon trunk destructively burns up in Earth\u2019s atmosphere.<\/p>\n
Once safely through the plasma stage of reentry, Dragon\u2019s drogue parachutes deployed, followed by the main chutes designed to ease the vehicle to a splashdown in the Pacific Ocean for recovery.<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.nasaspaceflight.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/08\/2018-08-03-121149.jpg\")
<\/p>\nDragon splashdown<\/p>\n
Recovery is attained by three main recovery vessels which were positioned near Dragon\u2019s return location. The main recovery vehicle had already set sail earlier this week.<\/p>\n
Fast recovery vessels deploy to begin collecting Dragon\u2019s parachutes as recovery of the capsule itself was conducted by the primary recovery assets.<\/p>\n
Dragon\u2019s parachute-assisted splashdown occurred around 6:17 p.m. Eastern time, 3:17 p.m. Pacific time, about 410 miles southwest of Long Beach, California. It will take about two days for Dragon to be brought back to the Port of Los Angeles for its cache of cargo and scientific experiments to be unloaded.<\/p>\n
The ISS crew spent the majority of the second half of Dragon\u2019s stay loading Dragon\u2019s pressurized capsule with key items to be returned to Earth, including numerous time-sensitive experiments, which will be the first items to be removed.<\/p>\n
Dragon will eventually take a road trip to SpaceX\u2019s test center at McGregor in Texas for the complete cargo removal.<\/p>\n
CRS-16 is the next Dragon mission to the ISS, currently scheduled for late November. This will be the first time Dragon will have flown on the Block 5 version of the Falcon 9.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
SpaceX\u2019s CRS-15 Dragon spacecraft has completed the EOM (End Of Mission) phase with a splashdown in the Pacific Ocean on Friday. As per usual \u2013 though still unusual for International Space Station (ISS) vehicles \u2013 Dragon and her important downmass will be recovered. Release from the Space Station Remote Manipulator System (SSRMS) occurred at 12:38 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":38339,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[2304,1395,233,316],"class_list":["post-38337","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-crs","tag-dragon","tag-iss","tag-spacex"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38337"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=38337"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38337\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/38339"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=38337"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=38337"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=38337"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}