WASHINGTON — A SpaceX cargo Dragon spacecraft is on its option to the Worldwide Area Station carrying provides and experiments after a launch March 14.
A Falcon 9 lifted off from Kennedy Area Middle’s Launch Advanced 39A at 8:30 p.m. Japanese. The Dragon spacecraft separated from the rocket’s higher stage about 12 minutes after liftoff and is scheduled to dock with the ISS at 7:52 a.m. Japanese March 16.
The spacecraft, flying the SpX-27 cargo mission underneath SpaceX’s Industrial Resupply Companies 2 contract with NASA, is carrying 2,852 kilograms of cargo, greater than 40% of which is science experiments for the station. These payloads embody research of the consequences of microgravity on coronary heart tissue, checks of carbon dioxide removing strategies and one experiment to show micro organism and spores to the house atmosphere.
The Dragon can be carrying provides for the crew and station {hardware}. The Dragon will spend a couple of month docked to the station earlier than returning to Earth with accomplished science experiments and different {hardware}.
The mission is the third flight of this cargo Dragon, which beforehand flew the SpX-22 and SpX-24 mission. The Falcon booster, which landed on a droneship within the Atlantic, accomplished its seventh mission.
Whereas NASA has beforehand mentioned certifying boosters for as much as 5 launches for crewed missions, there isn’t a agency restrict for cargo missions. “It’s based mostly on the evaluation of the well being of the booster and to satisfy the necessities of a authorities mission,” mentioned Phil Dempsey, NASA ISS transportation integration supervisor, throughout a pre-launch briefing March 13.
The launch of SpX-27 got here simply days after the docking port that spacecraft will use was freed up by the departure of the Crew-5 mission, which undocked from the station March 11 and splashed down later that day. It’s the newest in what NASA officers have described as a busy sequence of missions to the station, though the schedule of a few of these upcoming missions is unsure.
A Northrop Grumman Cygnus cargo spacecraft presently on the station is scheduled to depart this spring, concluding the NG-18 mission, whereas the NG-19 Cygnus would launch quickly thereafter. The timing of each the NG-18 departure and NG-19 launch “remains to be being labored out,” Dempsey mentioned earlier than the Dragon launch.
Whereas earlier schedules had indicated a launch in April of NG-19, Dempsey would solely say that the NG-18 departure would happen a while within the subsequent one to 2 months. The NG-19 launch would happen later within the spring. “There’s readiness that’s being labored between Northrop Grumman and NASA to grasp when the automobile is prepared,” he mentioned.
Additionally in flux is the launch of the primary crewed mission of Boeing’s CST-100 Starliner to the ISS. At a mid-February briefing, NASA and Boeing officers mentioned they have been planning a launch in mid to late April, however on the SpX-27 briefing, Dempsey mentioned the present deliberate launch date was no sooner than the tip of April.
“There’s handful of open work that’s nonetheless being assessed,” he mentioned. The present launch date of the tip of April “is underneath assessment for the time being based mostly on the readiness of the automobile.”
