NASA does Dragon shuffle prepping for Starliner launch

Parking is at a premium on the Worldwide House Station, however NASA and SpaceX cleared out one spot as a cargo Dragon spacecraft accomplished its journey residence with a splashdown off the Florida coast.

NASA nonetheless must shift the remaining Dragon spacecraft from its spot to clear the trail for subsequent week’s launch of Boeing’s CST-100 Starliner.

The cargo Dragon from the CRS-30 resupply mission that arrived in March was hooked up to the ISS for greater than 36 days. It returned for a 1:38 a.m. splashdown off Tampa, carrying greater than 4,100 kilos of science experiments and different provides again to Earth.

It departed the ISS Concord module, which has two docking ports, on Sunday.

However now NASA desires the 4 members of Crew-8 to carry out valet duties. They are going to climb aboard the Crew Dragon Endeavour that continues to be docked at Concord’s ahead port, and fly it round and redock to the open port, known as the zenith port.

NASA’s Matthew Dominick, Michael Barratt and Jeanette Epps together with Roscosmos’ Alexander Grebenkin will take the brief highway journey at 7:45 a.m. Thursday and be again hooked up to the ISS at 8:28 a.m.

That can go away the ahead port open for the arrival of the primary crewed flight of Starliner citing NASA’s Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams on the Crew Flight Take a look at slated to launch from Cape Canaveral House Power Station’s House Launch Advanced 41 atop an Atlas V rocket on Monday at 10:34 p.m.

They’re set to reach on the Starliner on Wednesday, Could 8, at 1:11 a.m. for about an eight-day keep on board briefly growing the ISS inhabitants to 9. Williams and Wilmore will return in Starliner, touchdown within the western U.S.

“We have deliberately cleared our flight plan, our automobile visitors and our schedule so that we have got a extremely massive window to accommodate the CFT mission,” stated NASA’s ISS program supervisor Dana Weigel. “So if for no matter motive we’d like extra time for the mission, whether or not that is within the run-up to launch or on board, there is no problem in any respect accommodating an extended mission period.”

Boeing is trying to have its spacecraft licensed to hitch SpaceX’s Crew Dragon fleet for normal rotational missions of astronauts as early as subsequent February. For now, SpaceX continues to carry out rotation duties with Crew-8 staying on board till Crew-9’s arrival as early as August.

“We’re very a lot trying ahead to having Butch and Suni onboard quickly,” Weigel. stated. “Our workforce is able to help this historic check flight.”

2024 Orlando Sentinel. Distributed by Tribune Content material Company, LLC.