![\"4f5518b15ac4e3ac1c74dff2f7496f32\"](\"https:\/\/www.nasaspaceflight.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/04\/4f5518b15ac4e3ac1c74dff2f7496f32.gif\")
The CRS-6 Dragon berthed with a total cargo mass of 2,015 kilograms (4,387 lb; 1,898 kg or 4,184 lb without packaging).<\/p>\nSpaceX\u2019s CRS-6 Dragon unberthed from the International Space Station (ISS) and was released from the grip of the Station\u2019s \u201cBig Arm\u201d on Thursday. The resupply ship then completed homeward leg of her trouble-free orbital adventures, with a splashdown in the Pacific Ocean expected less than six hours after parting ways with the orbital outpost.<\/p>\n
CRS-6:<\/p>\n
The SpX-6\/CRS-6 Dragon was launched uphill by the Falcon 9 v1.1 in April, arriving at the ISS three days later for berthing.<\/p>\n
A smooth rendezvous by the spacecraft culminated in her capture by Italian astronaut Samantha Cristoforetti.<\/p>\n
The CRS-6 Dragon berthed with a total cargo mass of 2,015 kilograms (4,387 lb; 1,898 kg or 4,184 lb without packaging).<\/p>\n
(Animation created by Artyom Zharov, via L2\u2019s huge collection of Dragon arrival hi res images)\n<\/p>\n
This included 500 kilograms (1,102 lb) of items and provisions for the station\u2019s crew, 518 kilograms (1,142 lb) of station hardware and equipment, 16 kilograms (35 lb) of computer and electronic equipment and 23 kilograms (51 lb) of hardware for EVAs.<\/p>\n
The remaining 844 kilograms (1,860 lb) of the Dragon\u2019s payload was taken up by scientific hardware and experiments, including critical materials to directly support about 40 of the more than 250 science and research investigations.<\/p>\n
Also making the trip was a new espresso machine for space station crews and a new team of mousetronauts in the Rodent Research-2 payload.<\/p>\n
Space Shuttle models (adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({});<\/p>\n Unlike all other operational Visiting Vehicles, Dragon will return a large amount of ISS cargo, with more than 3,000 pounds of mass \u2013 including crew supplies, hardware and computer resources, science experiments, space station hardware and trash \u2013 heading back to Earth.<\/p>\n Canadian robots had been busy with work outside of the Station, involving the latest Robotic Refuelling Mission (RRM) objective, before being called upon to prepare for releasing the Dragon.<\/p>\n This saw the Special Purpose Dexterous Manipulator (SPDM) stowed on the Mobile Base System (MBS) Power\/Data Grapple Fixture (PDGF) 2 by the Space Station Remote Manipulator System (SSRMS), which then took a ride on the Mobile Transporter \u2013 known as a walk off \u2013 to Node 2 to grab hold of the Dragon.<\/p>\n To kick off that homecoming, the long sequence of events \u2013 that will ultimately lead to Dragon safely bobbing up and down in the Pacific Ocean \u2013 saw the ISS crew initiate the unberthing of Dragon from the Node 2 Nadir CBM, via the release of 16 bolts around the CBM berthing collar on the ISS side, performed in four sets of four bolts to ensure even unloading on the CBM interface.<\/p>\n Dragon\u2019s removal was commanded by Canadian Space Agency (CSA) ground controllers, working with the ISS Flight Control Room at the Johnson Space Center.<\/p>\n Dragon was maneuvered to a release position approximately 30 feet below the ISS.<\/p>\n Once in the release position, the time came for Dragon and the ISS to part ways.<\/p>\n This procedure was initiated by the release of the snares holding the SSRMS Latching End Effector (LEE) to the Dragon Flight Releasable Grapple Fixture (FRGF) \u2013 effectively \u201cletting go\u201d of the Dragon.<\/p>\n MCC-H controllers first checked the lighting conditions were acceptable ahead of the 7:04 am Eastern release.<\/p>\n This departure towards the edge of the ISS\u2019 neighborhood was monitored by the CUCU and controllers on the ground.<\/p>\n The third burn was the larger of the firings, which sent Dragon outside of the approach ellipsoid, at which point SpaceX controllers inside MCC-X at SpaceX\u2019s Californian facility took full control of the mission.<\/p>\n The 10 minute deorbit burn was conducted by the spacecraft\u2019s Draco thrusters.<\/p>\n The umbilical between Dragon and her Trunk then disengaged, prior to the Trunk separating from the Dragon capsule.<\/p>\n As the spacecraft moved into Entry Interface (EI), she was protected by the PICA-X heat shield \u2013 a Thermal Protection System (TPS) based on a proprietary variant of NASA\u2019s phenolic impregnated carbon ablator (PICA) material, designed to protect the capsule during Earth atmospheric re-entry, and is even robust to protect Dragon from the high return velocities from Lunar and Martian destinations.<\/p>\n Three main recovery boats soon arrived on station, with fast boats racing to meet the Dragon shortly after she hit the water, allowing for the recovery procedures to begin.<\/p>\n The vehicle was powered down and then hooked up to the recover assets.<\/p>\n Dragon was transported to the port of Los Angeles, prior to a trip to Texas for cargo removal.<\/p>\n The next Dragon to head to the Station will be the CRS-7 mission, which is currently scheduled to launch on June 26.<\/p>\n This date is a small slip from the previous NET (No Earlier Than) date, based on the evaluations taking place into the manifest changes caused by the failure of the Russian resupply craft Progress M-27M.<\/p>\n (Images: via L2\u2019s SpaceX Special Section, which includes over 1,000 unreleased hi res images from Dragon\u2019s flights to the ISS. Other images via NASA and SpaceX)<\/p>\n (Click here: http:\/\/www.nasaspaceflight.com\/l2\/ \u2013 to view how you can access the best space flight content on the entire internet and directly support NASASpaceflight.com\u2019s running costs)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" SpaceX\u2019s CRS-6 Dragon unberthed from the International Space Station (ISS) and was released from the grip of the Station\u2019s \u201cBig Arm\u201d on Thursday. The resupply ship then completed homeward leg of her trouble-free orbital adventures, with a splashdown in the Pacific Ocean expected less than six hours after parting ways with the orbital outpost. CRS-6: […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":30167,"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-39332","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\/39332"}],"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=39332"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39332\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/30167"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=39332"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=39332"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=39332"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"2015-05-21-110432\"](\"https:\/\/www.nasaspaceflight.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/05\/2015-05-21-110432-350x239.jpg\")
Preparations for Dragon\u2019s return began with the translation of robotic assets.<\/p>\n![\"Dragon's](\"https:\/\/www.nasaspaceflight.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/03\/Z319.jpg\")
Inside the Station, the crew completed the loading of Dragon\u2019s downmass, before conducting a checkout of the COTS UHF Communication Unit (CUCU) Crew Command Panel (CCP) that the crew will use to communicate with the Dragon capsule while she is flying free in the vicinity of the station.<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.nasaspaceflight.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/10\/Z3132.jpg\")
With the SSRMS holding on to the Dragon \u2013 and the bolts released through the opposite process that saw first and second stage capture \u2013 the \u201cbig arm\u201d pulled Dragon away from the port.<\/p>\n![\"CRS-2](\"https:\/\/www.nasaspaceflight.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/03\/Z318.jpg\" "\\"CRS-2")
With the SSRMS retracted safely clear of the spacecraft, Dragon conducted three departure burns to depart to vicinity of the ISS, edging away from the orbital outpost, with small thruster firings to push down the R-Bar.<\/p>\n![\"Dragon](\"https:\/\/www.nasaspaceflight.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/03\/Z3110.jpg\" "\\"Dragon")
Dragon then enjoyed a free-flying phase on-orbit, during which time she completed a critical action \u2013 closure of the GNC bay door, to which the FRGF is mounted \u2013 before conducting the de-orbit burn at 11:49 am Eastern.<\/p>\n![\"Dragon](\"https:\/\/www.nasaspaceflight.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/03\/Z417.jpg\" "\\"Dragon")
Once at the required velocity and altitude, Dragon\u2019s drogue parachutes deployed, followed by Dragon\u2019s main parachutes, easing the vehicle to a splashdown in the Pacific Ocean off the coast of California at around 12:42 pm Eastern.<\/p>\n