A robotic SpaceX cargo craft will start its journey house to Earth on Monday afternoon (Jan. 9), and you’ll watch the motion dwell.
An uncrewed Dragon capsule is scheduled to undock from the Worldwide Area Station (ISS) Monday at 5:05 p.m. EST (2205 GMT), wrapping up a six-week keep in orbit. If all goes in line with plan, the spacecraft will splash down off the coast of Florida on Wednesday (Jan. 11).
Watch Dragon’s departure dwell right here at Area.com, courtesy of NASA, or straight through the space company; protection will start at 4:45 p.m. EST (1945 GMT).
Associated: Facts about the International Space Station
The Dragon launched atop a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket on Nov. 26, carrying about 7,700 kilos (3,500 kilograms) of cargo to the ISS. This gear included two new Worldwide Area Station Roll Out Photo voltaic Arrays (iROSAs), which NASA astronauts put in throughout two spacewalks final month.
The capsule additionally carried quite a lot of scientific experiments on this mission, referred to as CRS-26 as a result of it was the twenty sixth robotic resupply flight to the ISS flown by SpaceX. One investigation is rising dwarf cherry tomatoes on the orbiting lab to review off-Earth meals manufacturing, for instance, whereas one other continues ongoing research with 3D-cultured heart tissue in microgravity (opens in new tab).
The CRS-26 Dragon will carry about 4,400 kilos (2,000 kg) of provides and scientific gear again all the way down to Earth with it, NASA officials said (opens in new tab).
This return functionality is exclusive to Dragon. The opposite presently operational ISS resupply craft — Northrop Grumman’s Cygnus automobile and Russia’s Progress — are designed to fritter away in Earth’s atmosphere after they go away the orbiting lab.
Mike Wall is the creator of “Out There (opens in new tab)” (Grand Central Publishing, 2018; illustrated by Karl Tate), a e-book in regards to the seek for alien life. Observe him on Twitter @michaeldwall (opens in new tab). Observe us on Twitter @Spacedotcom (opens in new tab) or Facebook (opens in new tab).
