[SFN]SpaceX test-fires rocket, preps for final flight of first-generation Dragon

[Orionid]

SpaceX test-fires rocket, preps for final flight of first-generation Dragon capsule
March 2, 2020 Stephen Clark


SpaceX test-fired a Falcon 9 rocket Sunday on pad 40 at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, Florida. Credit: William Harwood/CBS News

The Falcon 9 booster for SpaceX’s next mission fired up briefly on a Cape Canaveral launch pad Sunday in a routine pre-flight test before a scheduled launch Friday night to kick off the final flight of the first version of the company’s Dragon cargo capsule to the International Space Station.

Nine Merlin 1D main engines at the base of the Falcon 9 booster fired up at 11 a.m. EST (1600 GMT) Sunday at Cape Canaveral’s Complex 40 launch pad. Hold-down clamps kept the rocket firmly on the ground as the engines throttled up to produce 1.7 million pounds of thrust for several seconds.

The test-firing is a customary step in SpaceX’s launch campaigns, providing an opportunity to check the readiness of the Falcon launcher and exercise the SpaceX launch team.

SpaceX drained the rocket of its kerosene and liquid oxygen propellants after Sunday’s test-firing, and teams planned to lower the Falcon 9 horizontal and return it to a nearby hangar for attachment of a Dragon cargo capsule this week.

The fully assembled launch vehicle will stand 213 feet (65 meters) tall with the Dragon spacecraft on top.

Liftoff is scheduled for 11:49 p.m. EST Friday (0449 GMT Saturday) from pad 40 on SpaceX’s fifth mission of the year, and the 20th operational Dragon resupply mission to the space station since 2012. The first stage booster is expected to land back at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station around eight minutes after liftoff.

NASA says the Dragon capsule will deliver more than 5,600 pounds of cargo to the space station. Assuming it launches Friday night, the supply ship is scheduled to arrive at the orbiting research complex early Monday, March 9.

The mission will mark the final flight of the first version of SpaceX’s Dragon spacecraft, which debuted in 2010 with a test flight in low Earth orbit. The Dragon capsule accomplished its first trip to the International Space Station in May 2012 on a second demonstration mission under NASA’s Commercial Orbital Transportation Services, or COTS, program.

Through the COTS program, NASA contributed $396 million toward the development of the Dragon spacecraft and Falcon 9 launcher in a public-private partnership with SpaceX. NASA says SpaceX contributed roughly $450 million to the effort.

By any measure, the investment paid off.

SpaceX received a NASA Commercial Resupply Services, or CRS, contract in 2008 to resupply the space station on a series of Dragon missions, and the company won a NASA competition in 2014 to develop an upgraded Dragon spacecraft to ferry astronauts to and from the station.

The commercial cargo and crew transportation agreements were designed to give NASA a way to get astronauts, experiments, space parts and other equipment to the space station after the retirement of the space shuttle in 2011.

Northrop Grumman is NASA’s other commercial cargo transportation provider, and Boeing joined SpaceX as the other contractor the commercial crew program.

Although NASA was the anchor customer for the Falcon 9 launcher, SpaceX has won billions of dollars in launch contracts with commercial satellite companies and the U.S. military over the last decade.

The Falcon 9’s success in the global launch market have returned many commercial satellite launches to the United States after years of domination by European and Russian rockets. And the U.S. military can now procure launches from two companies — SpaceX and United Launch Alliance — offering the Pentagon a competitive market to launch military satellites after awarding the bulk of its contracts to ULA following that company’s formation in 2006.

SpaceX went on to develop the Falcon Heavy, comprised of three Falcon 9 first stage boosters bolted together. And SpaceX has recovered Falcon rocket boosters 49 times since 2015, allowing the company to refurbish and reuse the hardware, and reduce prices.

The Falcon 9 booster assigned to Friday night’s launch previously launched Dec. 5 on SpaceX’s previous Dragon cargo mission, then landed on the company’s drone ship in the Atlantic Ocean.

SpaceX began regular cargo transportation flights to the space station in October 2012. Since the initial contract award in 2008, NASA has extended the CRS agreement with SpaceX from 12 missions to 20 flights, boosting its value to more than $3 billion.

The Dragon capsule itself has performed well on all its missions, successfully reaching the space station and returning to Earth on all but one flight. A Falcon 9 rocket failed during launch on a resupply flight in June 2015, destroying a Dragon spacecraft and its cargo load.

SpaceX launched its last new first-generation Dragon spacecraft in August 2017. Since then, the company has reused Dragon vehicles that were refurbished after splashing down in the Pacific Ocean.

The Dragon spacecraft being readied for Friday’s launch — designed CRS-20, or SpaceX-20 — previously flew to the space station twice on the CRS-10 and CRS-16 missions in February 2017 and December 2018, according to SpaceX.


Two logos representing the International Space Station on the Dragon cargo capsule set for launch March 6 mark the spacecraft’s two previous flights. Credit: SpaceX

NASA awarded a second Commercial Resupply Services contract to SpaceX in 2016. Orbital ATK — now part of Northrop Grumman — and Sierra Nevada Corp. also received CRS-2 contracts to resupply the space station through the mid-2020s.

SpaceX plans to use a cargo-carrying variant of its next-generation Dragon 2 spacecraft for the CRS-2 missions. The Dragon 2’s human-rated configuration, known as the Crew Dragon, completed an unpiloted test flight to the space station in March 2019, and could fly with astronauts for the first time as soon as May.

The Dragon 2’s first regular cargo mission is scheduled for launch in October.

Northrop Grumman launched its first CRS-2 mission using upgraded versions of its Antares rocket and Cygnus supply ship last November, and Sierra Nevada’s Dream Chaser space plane is scheduled to fly to the space station for the first time in 2021.

The Dragon 2 spacecraft has a different aerodynamic shape than the first-generation Dragon. It can also dock automatically with the space station, without requiring station crews to capture it with the research lab’s Canadian-built robotic arm.

The cargo version of Dragon 2 will launch without seats, cockpit controls and other life support systems required to sustain astronauts in space. The cargo version will also launch without the SuperDraco escape thrusters fitted to human-rated Dragon capsules.

While SpaceX and NASA do not initially plan to reuse Dragon 2 capsules for crew missions, the cargo variant will be qualified to fly to the space station and back to Earth up to five times, officials said. The first-generation Dragon capsule was capped at three missions.

Beginning with the CRS-21 mission late this year, the new Dragon 2 cargo capsules will splash down under parachutes in the Atlantic Ocean east of Florida, rather than the current recovery zone in the Pacific Ocean west of Baja California, SpaceX officials said last year.

SpaceX will refurbish the Dragon cargo vehicles at Cape Canaveral, rather than at the company’s facilities in Texas and California, officials said.


The Dragon capsule slated to launch March 6 is seen in December 2018 during a previous visit to the International Space Station. Credit: NASA

SpaceX officials said last year that Dragon 2 cargo missions will launch from pad 39A at the Kennedy Space Center, the same facility that will host crew launches. That will allow ground teams to load last-minute supplies and time-sensitive experiments into the capsule using the access arm built for astronauts.

SpaceX currently uses a mobile clean room to install the final cargo into the Dragon spacecraft at pad 40.

The Dragon 2 will be able to carry heavier cargo loads to the space station. But the Dragon 2’s primary arrival mode, using docking rather than capture and berthing with the robotic arm, comes with a limitation.

The hatches through the space station’s docking ports are narrower than the passageways through the berthing ports currently used by Dragon cargo vehicles.

Northrop Grumman’s Cygnus supply ship and Sierra Nevada’s Dream Chaser space plane are designed to berth to the space station, offering transportation for bulkier items.

Source: https://spaceflightnow.com/2020/03/02/spacex-test-fires-rocket-preps-for-final-flight-of-first-generation-dragon-capsule/

[Orionid]

Falcon 9 launches final first-generation Dragon
by Jeff Foust — March 7, 2020


A SpaceX Falcon 9 lifts off at 11:50 p.m. Eastern March 6 carrying the last of the first generation of Dragon cargo spacecraft. Credit: SpaceX webcast

WASHINGTON — A SpaceX Falcon 9 lifted off March 6 and placed into orbit a Dragon spacecraft on the final flight of that version of the cargo vehicle.

The Falcon 9 launched from Space Launch Complex 40 at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station at 11:50 p.m. Eastern. The Dragon spacecraft separated from the rocket’s upper stage in low Earth orbit nine and half minutes later.

That Dragon spacecraft, on a mission called CRS-20, will arrive at the International Space Station at about 7 a.m. Eastern March 9. The spacecraft is carrying 1,977 kilograms of cargo for the station, including science experiments and crew supplies.

Among the payloads on the Dragon is Bartolomeo, an external experiment platform developed by Airbus that will be installed on the station’s Columbus module. Bartolomeo will be operated by Airbus as a commercial platform in cooperation with the European Space Agency.

Dragon will remain at the station for about one month before departing with more than 1,680 kilograms of cargo for return to Earth. The exact date of the return will depend on weather conditions and the completion of scientific investigations that will be brought back to Earth, said Joel Montalbano, deputy manager for International Space Station program, during a pre-launch briefing March 6 at the Kennedy Space Center.

When Dragon does return home, it will mark the end of SpaceX’s original Commercial Resupply Services (CRS) contract with NASA. That contract, awarded in December 2008, originally included 12 flights for $1.6 billion. NASA added eight missions to the contract, which had a maximum value of $3.1 billion.

SpaceX won one of three CRS-2 contracts in January 2016, along with Orbital ATK (now Northrop Grumman) and Sierra Nevada Corporation, to continue cargo deliveries to the station. The first of those missions for SpaceX, called CRS-21, is scheduled to launch in the fall.

Those future SpaceX CRS missions will use a version of the Crew Dragon spacecraft that SpaceX is developing for NASA’s commercial crew program. That version lacks the SuperDraco thrusters in Crew Dragon’s launch abort system and has a smaller life support system, said Hans Koenigsmann, vice president of build and flight reliability at SpaceX, during the pre-launch briefing. The spacecraft will have about 20% more volume than the current cargo Dragon.

The new Dragon will also be designed for greater reuse. While the spacecraft flying the CRS-20 mission is making its third flight, a milestone two other Dragon spacecraft have reached, Koenigsmann said the new cargo Dragon is designed for five flights.

The actual number of flights the spacecraft can make remains to be seen, he acknowledged. “The number of flights right now is a design number. A lot of that depends on what you see when you come back,” he said. “In reality, we might be able to run the capsule six times, or four times, depending on what we find.”

The launch set another milestone for the company with the 50th successful booster landing. The Falcon 9 first stage landed eight and a half minutes after liftoff at Landing Zone 1 at Cape Canaveral. The stage was making its second flight, having previously launched the CRS-19 Dragon mission in December 2019.

The company had hoped to hit that milestone on the previous launch Feb. 17, carrying a batch of 60 Starlink satellites. However, the stage failed to land on the droneship in the Atlantic, instead hitting the ocean nearby.

Koenigsmann said at the briefing that the stage didn’t suffer a technical problem that caused the failed landing, but rather diverted to avoid hitting the ship. “It did that primarily because the winds it encountered were not the winds that were predicted,” he said, because models didn’t accurately predict a change in winds around the landing time.

This landing faced challenges of its own because of gusty low-level winds that threatened to exceed launch limits. “Rocket will land in highest winds ever at Cape Canaveral tonight,” tweeted Elon Musk, chief executive of SpaceX, two and a half hours before the landing. “This is intentional envelope expansion.”

The booster, though, landed safely on a pad at Landing Zone 1. “Envelope expanded,” Musk tweeted minutes later.

Source: https://spacenews.com/falcon-9-launches-final-first-generation-dragon/

[Orionid]

Space station to receive new outdoor deck for science experiments
March 6, 2020 Stephen Clark


Ground teams inspect the Bartolomeo science platform at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida before loading into the drunk of a SpaceX Dragon cargo capsule. Credit: NASA

An Airbus-owned, German-built outdoor science deck is set for launch Friday night from Cape Canaveral aboard a SpaceX Dragon cargo capsule, heading for the International Space Station to make the orbiting research outpost more accessible for commercial space experiments.

The Bartolomeo platform will be robotically installed to the outside of the space station’s Columbus module later this month, and astronauts will hook up wiring on a spacewalk to ready the structure to host science payloads.

Developed by Airbus Defense and Space in Germany in partnership with the European Space Agency, the Bartolomeo platform is designed to offer commercial companies a streamlined way of getting their experiments into orbit. Rather than launching their experiments on a standalone satellite, or spending money on complicated power and data handling systems, a customer can develop an experiment and plug it into Bartolomeo for months or years of operations.

Bartolomeo will be attached to the leading edge of ESA’s Columbus module. The platform has 12 mounting points, each providing payloads with electricity and data connections to power the experiments and ensure scientists promptly receive data from their research investigations.

“Simply put, Bartolomeo is a science and payload hosting facility to be mounted on on the outside of the International Space Station to provide additional payload locations for the external science and research community,” said Kris Kuehnel, director of Airbus DS Space Systems in Houston. “Bartolomeo was commercially developed by Airbus in a cooperative agreement with the European Space Agency.

Named for the younger brother of explorer Christopher Columbus, Bartolomeo is similar to the unpressurized outdoor platform affixed to the Japanese Kibo lab module on the opposite side of the space station. But Kibo’s exposed facility was funded by the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency and primarily hosts government-owned experiments from the United States and Japan.

Bartolomeo is European-owned, and Airbus is emphasizing its usefulness for commercial companies, academic institutions and other lower-budget customers.

“It started a couple of years ago when the European Space Agency asked for ideas how to promote science and increased commercial activities on-board the ISS, and our answer is the Bartolomeo platform,” said Andreas Schütte, Bartolomeo’s project manager at Airbus. “With Bartolomeo, we can offer 12 payload slots available for any organization, be it a research organization, university, or a commercial entity. We sell to anyone to enable science, in-orbit demonstrations, you name it.”

Airbus spent about 40 million euros ($45 million) to develop the Bartolomeo platform, according to DLR, the German space agency. DLR says accommodations on-board Bartolomeo will be priced from 300,000 to 3.5 million euros ($340,000 to $4 million) per year.

“Radiation biologists, solar physicists and astrophysicists, Earth observers and atmospheric and climate researchers will all benefit from the new platform,” said Julianna Schmitz, who is responsible for ISS commercialization at DLR. “Bartolomeo is particularly suitable for technology testing and validation. There are unique possibilities here that cannot be achieved in any laboratory on Earth because optical sensors, materials, robotic components and antennas can be tested directly in the space environment.”

Bartolomeo is loaded inside the unpressurized trunk of a SpaceX Dragon cargo capsule for liftoff from Cape Canaveral on top of a Falcon 9 rocket Friday at 11:50 p.m. EST (0450 GMT Saturday).


Artist’s illustration of the Bartolomeo platform installed outside the International Space Station’s Columbus lab module. Credit: Airbus Defense and Space

The Dragon cargo mission — SpaceX’s 20th operationally resupply launch to the space station — is set to deliver 4,358 pounds (1,977 kilograms) of supplies, experiments and other equipment to the orbiting research outpost. Bartolomeo makes up about one-quarter of the cargo mass on the Dragon capsule.

The mission will mark the final flight by SpaceX’s first-generation Dragon spacecraft, which first flew in space in 2010 on a test flight before reaching the space station on a subsequent mission in 2012.

With a successful launch Friday night and a rendezvous with the space station early Monday, SpaceX will have delivered more than 94,000 pounds (around 43 metric tons) of cargo to the research complex on 20 missions, including a test flight in 2012. One of the operational resupply flights suffered a launch failure in 2015.

The 20 Dragon missions have returned about 74,000 pounds (33 metric tons) of cargo from the space station back to Earth.

The Dragon commercial cargo missions were conducted under a $3.04 billion resupply services contract with NASA, which also helped pay for development of the Dragon spacecraft and Falcon 9 launcher through an earlier $396 million funding agreement.

SpaceX plans to begin resupply missions using its next-generation Dragon 2 spacecraft in October. The Dragon 2 was developed to ferry astronauts to and from the space station, but the new capsule comes in dedicated crew and cargo configurations.

Along with Bartolomeo, the Dragon cargo mission set for launch Friday night will deliver about a ton of scientific experiments, including biological research investigations studying microgravity’s impact on stem cells, intestinal diseases and chemical reactions.

Another experiment heading to the space station comes from Delta Faucet, which will study water droplet formation in microgravity in hopes of developing better-performing shower heads while reducing water usage.

The Dragon spacecraft is also packed with spare parts and replacement hardware for the space station’s research facilities and life support systems. Components launching Friday include upgraded hardware for the station’s urine processing system, which converts human waste into drinking water.

The new components will allow NASA teams to test out modifications designed to extend the lifetime of the urine processing system’s distillation assembly ahead of future missions to the moon and Mars, which will require longer-lasting life support equipment.


The Bartolomeo is fastened inside the trunk of a SpaceX Dragon cargo capsule for liftoff from Cape Canaveral. Credit: Airbus Defense and Space

When the Dragon spacecraft reaches a position roughly 30 feet (10 meters) below the space station, astronauts Jessica Meir and Drew Morgan will use the station’s Canadian-built robotic arm to grapple the SpaceX cargo capsule.

The robot arm will maneuver the ship to a berthing port on the station’s Harmony module, and astronauts will begin unpacking the contents of the capsule’s pressurized compartment.

Meanwhile, the robotics systems outside the station will reach into the Dragon’s trunk and grapple the Bartolomeo platform.

“We are eagerly awaiting the launch, but this is only one milestone on the way for Bartolomeo,” Schütte said. “The most interesting part is eventually the robotic installation of Bartolomeo.”

The robotic arm will attach the Bartolomeo platform to trunnion bolts on the Columbus module, which connected the lab to restraints inside the space shuttle payload for its journey to the space station in 2008. The platform is folded up to fit inside the SpaceX Dragon spacecraft, and it will open up to its fully-deployed configuration as it’s connected to the Columbus module.

“We needed to fit … into the SpaceX trunk,” Schütte said.  “We also had to fold the outrigger boom to attach between the trunnions, so that required some really complex mechanisms, and requires also a lot of robotics activities when Bartolomeo is going to be installed.”

Astronauts will mate power and data connectors on a spacewalk to finish readying the Bartolomeo platform for operations.

Data from experiments attached to Bartolomeo will be routed to the ground through the space station’s telemetry system, then go into cloud storage, where scientists can access the information via a smartphone. Payload owners can also send commands to their experiments through a smartphone, Schütte said.

“No astronauts will need to be deployed to retrofit Bartolomeo with scientific payloads,” Schmitz said. “Thanks to the payloads’ standardized dimensions and interfaces, installation is much easier and can be carried out purely robotically via remote control from Earth.”

A German-made laser communications terminal will be added to Bartolomeo in 2021, allowing faster data links between experiments and their operators on the ground.

“The first experiment to find its science spot (on Bartolomeo) will be the Multi-Needle Langmuir Probe, a payload made in Norway to control the electric potential of a spacecraft or satellite platform with an electron emitter,” ESA said.

Another experiment from CNES, the French space agency, could also be mounted to Bartolomeo to investigate the aging of materials during spaceflight.

Airbus is also partnering with the United Nations Office for Outer Space Affairs to solicit ideas for Bartolomeo payloads from around the world. Developing countries are particularly encouraged to participate, according to the UN.

Source: https://spaceflightnow.com/2020/03/06/space-station-to-receive-new-outdoor-deck-for-science-experiments/

[Adam.Przybyla]

 ... na Bartolomeo bedzie tez testowany silnik na "metal" rozwijany w Australii;-)
Z powazaniem
                      Adam Przybyla

[Orionid]

Final first-generation cargo Dragon spacecraft returns to Earth
by Jeff Foust — April 7, 2020


NASA astronaut Drew Morgan photographed the CRS-20 Dragon spacecraft after the station's robotic arm unberthed it and prior to its release. Credit: NASA

WASHINGTON — A SpaceX Dragon capsule returned to Earth April 7, marking the end of the final mission of the original cargo version of the spacecraft.

The Dragon spacecraft, unberthed from the station’s Harmony module earlier in the day by the station’s Canadarm2 robotic arm, was released by the arm at 9:06 a.m. Eastern. The spacecraft maneuvered away from the station and later performed a re-entry burn, splashing down in the Pacific Ocean about 500 kilometers southwest of Long Beach, California, at 2:50 p.m. Eastern.

The departure and return of the Dragon took place normally despite the ongoing coronavirus pandemic. NASA noted in its coverage of the Dragon’s departure that personnel at Mission Control at the Johnson Space Center are alternating shifts between two control rooms, so that while one is in use the other is cleaned. Some controllers at SpaceX’s own mission control center at its Hawthorne, California, headquarters were seen in NASA TV coverage wearing face masks.

The Dragon launched to the station on the CRS-20 cargo mission March 6, arriving at the station early March 9. The spacecraft transported to the station 1,977 kilograms of cargo. It returned with more than 1,800 kilograms of cargo, including the results of experiments conducted on the station.

The mission is the last under SpaceX’s original Commercial Resupply Services (CRS) contract, which NASA awarded in 2008. The contract originally included 12 flights for $1.6 billion. NASA later added eight missions to the contract. The agency has not disclosed the total value of the extended contract, but a 2018 report by NASA’s Office of Inspector General stated SpaceX was due to receive $3.04 billion for those 20 missions, near the maximum allowed value of $3.1 billion for the CRS contract.

Future SpaceX cargo missions will use a version of the Crew Dragon spacecraft the company developed for NASA’s commercial crew program. That vehicle will have 20% more volume than the original cargo Dragon but lack the SuperDraco thrusters used in the Crew Dragon’s abort system. The spacecraft will also be able to dock directly with the station, rather than be berthed by the station’s robotic arm, and splash down in the Atlantic Ocean rather than the Pacific.

The new cargo Dragon is designed for five flights, said Hans Koenigsmann, vice president of build and flight reliability at SpaceX, during a briefing in March. The most flights a first-generation cargo Dragon spacecraft made was three, including the spacecraft on the CRS-20 mission.

Those missions will operate under a second CRS contract awarded to SpaceX, as well as Orbital ATK (now Northrop Grumman) and Sierra Nevada Corporation (SNC), in 2016. The first SpaceX mission under that contract, CRS-21, is scheduled for this fall.

Northrop Grumman started its flights under the new CRS contract in November 2019, launching two Cygnus spacecraft to date under the award. SNC is building its first Dream Chaser spacecraft, which the company plans to launch in the fall of 2021. All three companies are guaranteed a minimum of six missions each under their contracts.

Source: https://spacenews.com/final-first-generation-cargo-dragon-spacecraft-returns-to-earth/

[Orionid]

With successful splashdown, SpaceX retires first version of Dragon spacecraft
April 7, 2020 Stephen Clark [SFN]


SpaceX’s Dragon cargo capsule — flying on SpaceX’s CRS-20 mission — is seen berthed at the International Space Station in this photo taken March 24. Credit: NASA

For the final time, a SpaceX Dragon cargo capsule was released from the International Space Station’s robotic arm Tuesday and splashed down hours later in Pacific Ocean southwest of Los Angeles. Beginning later this year, SpaceX will fly upgraded Dragon freighters that will dock automatically with the space station and parachute into the Atlantic Ocean east of Florida.

The unpiloted cargo capsule splashed down in the Pacific Ocean at 2:50 p.m. EDT (11:50 a.m. PDT; 1850 GMT) Saturday, bringing home more than 4,000 pounds of scientific experiments and other equipment, according to NASA.

SpaceX teams on station in the Pacific were expected to approach the floating spacecraft and hoist it aboard a recovery ship for the trip to the Port of Los Angeles, where ground crews will begin unloading the cargo inside the capsule.

The specimens packed inside the Dragon spacecraft for Tuesday’s return to Earth included live mice, plant cells grown on the space station, and an array of other biological and pharmaceutical research experiments.

The mice that rode the Dragon back to Earth on Tuesday are part of a Japanese research investigation studying how gene expression in the cells of the animals may have been altered after a long-duration spaceflight. The mice were housed in a centrifuge-equipped experiment facility on the station, where they lived under partial gravity conditions.

Researchers want to study now the mice responded to the partial gravity, and the results could be applied to preparations for future long-term human expeditions in space, according to NASA.

Refrigerated samples from an experiment that looks at how bone cells react to microgravity were also returned to Earth on Tuesday. The bone cells flown in space will be compared with bone cells that were magnetically levitated in a ground-based lab, allowing scientists to determine whether magnetic levitation accurately simulates microgravity.

Studying bone cells like those flown on the space station could help researchers develop treatments for medical conditions that cause bone loss.

Also aboard the Dragon capsule were samples from an experiment that studied the generation of cardiomyocytes, specialized heart muscle cells, for use in research and clinical applications, according to NASA. Research shows the cardiomyocytes generated in microgravity could have improved yield and purity, and further studies could help scientists create heart tissues for use in regenerative medicine, disease modeling and drug discovery, NASA said.

Samples from another experiment to evaluate changes and mutations in coffee and hemp plant cells in microgravity were also flown back to Earth on Tuesday.

The BioFabrication Facility, developed by an Indiana company named Techshot, also returned to Earth on Tuesday inside the Dragon capsule. Designed to 3D-print soft human tissue in microgravity, the facility could demonstrate capabilities researchers view as a stepping stone toward potentially manufacturing organs for transplant patients.

Techshot plans to upgrade the bioprinter, and experts will examine the properties of a knee meniscus printed aboard the space station.


SpaceX’s Dragon cargo craft delivered Techshot’s 3D BioFabrication Facility, seen here on the ground, to demonstrate technologies for manufacturing artificial human tissue in space. Credit: Techshot

The splashdown in the Pacific on Tuesday occurred hours after the Dragon capsule departed the space station.

Ground controllers at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston commanded the station’s Canadian-built robotic arm to release the Dragon spacecraft at 9:06 a.m. EDT (1306 GMT). The Dragon fired thrusters to fly away from the station, setting up for a braking burn at 1:58 p.m. EDT (1758 GMT) to drop into Earth’s atmosphere for re-entry.

The Dragon jettisoned its disposable unpressurized trunk and deployed parachutes to gently descend into the Pacific.

The Dragon spacecraft arrived at the space station March 9, following launch March 6 aboard a Falcon 9 rocket from Cape Canaveral. It delivered 4,358 pounds (1,977 kilograms) of cargo and experiments to the station, including a new European-built outdoor science deck to accommodate external experiments.

The return Tuesday marked the end of the third flight of this particular Dragon capsule, and the final mission under a 20-flight Cargo Resupply Services contact between SpaceX and NASA.

The end of the Dragon mission Tuesday marks the transition to SpaceX’x next CRS contract with NASA. SpaceX’s next series of cargo missions will use a new Dragon spacecraft design known as the Dragon 2. Cargo flights to the space station using the Dragon 2 spacecraft are scheduled to begin in late October.

The Dragon 2’s human-rated variant is named the Crew Dragon, which is scheduled to fly astronauts to the space station for the first time as soon as late May.

The first-generation version of the Dragon spacecraft debuted in 2010 with a test flight in low Earth orbit. The Dragon capsule accomplished its first trip to the International Space Station in May 2012 on a second demonstration mission under NASA’s Commercial Orbital Transportation Services, or COTS, program.

Through the COTS program, NASA contributed $396 million toward the development of the Dragon spacecraft and Falcon 9 launcher in a public-private partnership with SpaceX. NASA says SpaceX contributed roughly $450 million to the effort.

With the COTS demonstrations accomplished, SpaceX began regular cargo transportation services to the space station in October 2012 under the CRS contract. In 2014, SpaceX won a NASA competition to develop an upgraded Dragon spacecraft to ferry astronauts to and from the station.

The commercial cargo and crew transportation agreements were designed to give NASA a way to get astronauts, experiments, space parts and other equipment to the space station after the retirement of the space shuttle in 2011.

Northrop Grumman is NASA’s other commercial cargo transportation provider, and Boeing joined SpaceX as the other contractor the commercial crew program.

Since the initial contract award in 2008, NASA has extended the CRS agreement with SpaceX from 12 missions to 20 flights.


The Dragon spacecraft is pictured during departure from the International Space Station on Tuesday. Credit: NASA/Drew Morgan

The Dragon capsule itself has performed well on all its missions, successfully reaching the space station and returning to Earth on all but one flight. A Falcon 9 rocket failed during launch on a resupply flight in June 2015, destroying a Dragon spacecraft and its cargo load.

Counting the test flights and the failed launch, SpaceX has launched 22 missions using the first-generation Dragon spacecraft.

The missions carried more than 94,000 pounds (43 metric tons) of cargo to the International Space Station, and returned about 74,000 pounds (33 metric tons) of equipment and specimens to Earth, according to NASA.

SpaceX launched its last new first-generation Dragon spacecraft in August 2017. Since then, the company has reused Dragon vehicles that were refurbished after splashing down in the Pacific Ocean.

NASA awarded a second Commercial Resupply Services contract to SpaceX in 2016. Orbital ATK — now part of Northrop Grumman — and Sierra Nevada Corp. also received CRS-2 contracts to resupply the space station through the mid-2020s.

Northrop Grumman launched its first CRS-2 mission using upgraded versions of its Antares rocket and Cygnus supply ship last November, and Sierra Nevada’s Dream Chaser space plane is scheduled to fly to the space station for the first time in 2021.

The Dragon 2 has a different aerodynamic shape than the first-generation Dragon, and it has body-mounted solar arrays to generate electricity, replacing the extendable wings on the first version of the Dragon spacecraft.

It can also dock automatically with the space station, without requiring station crews to capture it with the research lab’s Canadian-built robotic arm. That means Tuesday’s departure of the cargo capsule was the final time a Dragon spacecraft will be released robotically.

The cargo version of Dragon 2 will launch without seats, cockpit controls and other life support systems required to sustain astronauts in space. The cargo version will also launch without the SuperDraco escape thrusters fitted to human-rated Dragon capsules.

While SpaceX and NASA do not initially plan to reuse Dragon 2 capsules for crew missions, the cargo variant will be qualified to fly to the space station and back to Earth up to five times, officials said. The first-generation Dragon capsule was capped at three missions.


File photo of a SpaceX Dragon capsule descending under parachutes toward the Pacific Ocean at the ending of a 2017 cargo mission. Credit: SpaceX

Beginning with the CRS-21 mission late this year, the new Dragon 2 cargo capsules will splash down under parachutes in the Atlantic Ocean east of Florida, rather than the current recovery zone in the Pacific Ocean west of Baja California. It takes a day or two for Dragon capsules to get back to port in California on SpaceX recovery ships. That transit time will be cut with splashdowns in the Atlantic.

“When they do that, they’ll be a matter of hours from the port,” said Kenny Todd, NASA’s manager of International Space Station operations and integration, last month. “So that will allow us to get this critical science back in the investigators’ hands much quicker.”

The Dragon 2 will be able to carry more cargo to the space station. But the Dragon 2’s primary arrival mode, using docking rather than capture and berthing with the robotic arm, comes with a limitation.

The hatches through the space station’s docking ports are narrower than the passageways through the berthing ports currently used by Dragon cargo vehicles.

Northrop Grumman’s Cygnus supply ship and Sierra Nevada’s Dream Chaser space plane are designed to berth to the space station, offering transportation for bulkier items.

NASA astronaut Drew Morgan monitored Tuesday’s Dragon departure from the space station.

“That was the last time the arm and Dragon will meet that way so it was fun to watch,” Morgan said. “Congratulations to the SpaceX team and the teams all around the world for the successful Dragon mission over the last month and wrapping up Expedition 62.”

Morgan and crewmates Jessica Meir and Oleg Skripochka will be joined by three fresh crew members Thursday, then they will head for landing in Kazakhstan on April 17 on a Russian Soyuz capsule.

Source: https://spaceflightnow.com/2020/04/07/spacex-retires-first-version-of-dragon-spacecraft/