SpaceX’s subsequent cargo launch to the Worldwide Area Station (ISS) has been pushed again a day, to Tuesday (Nov. 22).
The delay, which SpaceX introduced on Friday (Nov. 18), was attributable to a coolant leak within the firm’s Dragon cargo capsule. The leak has been fastened and Dragon is now set to raise off atop a Falcon 9 rocket from Florida’s Kennedy Area Heart on Tuesday at 3:54 p.m. EST (2054 GMT).
You may watch the liftoff right here at Area.com when the time comes.
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If all goes in response to plan, Dragon will arrive on the International Space Station simply earlier than 6 a.m. EST (1100 GMT) on Wednesday (Nov. 23).
It can ship about 7,700 kilos (3,500 kilograms) of provides and scientific experiments to the orbiting lab, together with tasks designed by college students and sponsored by the ISS Nationwide Laboratory’s instructional outreach applications created to spur curiosity in space sciences.
“Trying ahead to this mission,” Joel Montalbano, supervisor of NASA’s Worldwide Area Station program, mentioned throughout a briefing on Friday.
By way of the Pupil Spaceflight Experiments Program, center faculty and highschool college students competed for the prospect to ship their tasks to the ISS, which embrace attention-grabbing experiments concerned with crystal progress, plant biology, physics and microbial analysis.
Additionally alongside for the trip will likely be payloads originating from the Lady Scouts of America and Area Youngsters World that may examine brine shrimp, ants and mobile plant progress in low Earth orbit.
These pupil payloads will be part of a mess of experiments designed by firms, universities and analysis institutes, a few of which is able to use the space surroundings to attempt to make biomedical advances.
One challenge will take a look at a brand new bone adhesive that would assist restore fractures, for instance, whereas one other will give a brand new implantable drug-delivery gadget an off-Earth trial.
The {hardware} Dragon will haul up on CRS-26 consists of one other set of Worldwide Area Station Roll Out Photo voltaic Arrays (iROSAs), which will likely be put in on the orbiting lab to enhance its energy system.
“Of vital significance to us is the 2 new solar arrays that we’ll be doing spacewalks on on the finish of November and early December to put in and deploy aboard the Worldwide Area Station,” Montalbano mentioned. “Along with the 2 solar arrays we’ll be delivering on SpaceX 26, we’ve got some life assist gear, some GPS {hardware}, some train {hardware} and a few medical gear.”
Dragon will keep docked to the ISS for about 45 days on CRS-26 — 15 days longer than a typical SpaceX cargo flight, he added.
The longer keep was applied “with a view to have time to do the EVAs for the solar array set up and hold our science necessities which can be vital to the Worldwide Area Station,” Montalbano mentioned.
Since subsequent Thursday is Thanksgiving, an appetizing array of particular vacation meals can even be onboard the resupply mission, together with ice cream, spicy inexperienced beans, stuffing, sweet corn and different conventional Turkey Day favorites.
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