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NASA Live Coverage of SpaceX Dragon Cargo Craft Station Departure and Scientific Research Samples Return to Earth
NASA is set to provide live coverage of the SpaceX Dragon cargo resupply spacecraft departing from the International Space Station on Saturday, April 15. The event will be broadcasted live on NASA Television, the NASA app, and online. The Dragon cargo resupply spacecraft will undock from the station’s Harmony module at 11:05 a.m. EDT and move a safe distance away from the station using its thrusters. It will then re-enter Earth’s atmosphere and make a parachute-assisted splashdown off the coast of Florida later in the day. The spacecraft will carry back to Earth approximately 4,300 pounds of supplies and scientific experiments that were designed to take advantage of the space station’s microgravity environment.
Credits: NASA
One of the scientific investigations that Dragon is carrying includes the Pick-and-Eat Salad-Crop Productivity, Nutritional Value, and Acceptability to Supplement the International Space Station Food System (Veg-05) experiment. Samples from this experiment will be returning to Earth for analysis. In this experiment, astronauts grew dwarf tomatoes in the station’s Veggie miniature greenhouse and performed three harvests at 90, 97, and 104 days. They froze tomatoes, water samples, and swabs of the growth hardware to examine the effects of light quality and fertilizer on fruit production, microbial safety, and nutritional value. This experiment is important for future long-duration missions as the ability to grow plants in space for fresh food and an improved crew living experience is crucial.
Another investigation is Hicari, from JAXA (Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency), which tested a growth method and produced crystals of a silicon-germanium (SiGe) semiconductor using the Japanese Experiment Module-Gradient Heating Furnace (JEM-GHF). This crystal growth method could support development of more efficient solar cells and semiconductor-based electronics. The space-produced crystals are returning to Earth for analysis.
The Vascular Aging investigation from CSA (Canadian Space Agency) monitors the arterial wall stiffening and thickening astronauts can experience after six months in space. This investigation used artery ultrasounds, blood samples, glucose tolerance tests, and wearable sensors to collect data that could help identify and assess risk to astronaut cardiovascular health and point to mechanisms for reducing that risk.
The Solid Fuel Ignition and Extinction – Growth and Extinction Limit (SoFIE-Gel) investigation studies how fuel temperature affects material flammability. The investigation could improve safety of crew members on future missions by increasing understanding of early fire growth behavior, informing selection of fire-resistant spacecraft cabin materials, validating flammability models, and helping to determine optimal fire suppression techniques.
The departure of the SpaceX Dragon cargo resupply spacecraft from the International Space Station is an important event as it signifies the end of a mission that began on March 14. This mission delivered more than 6,000 pounds of research investigations, crew supplies, and station hardware. The scientific experiments that Dragon is carrying back to Earth will provide valuable insights for future long-duration missions, and help improve our understanding of space-related issues that can affect astronauts’ health and safety.
The agency will provide live coverage of Dragon’s undocking and departure starting at 10:45 a.m. EDT on NASA Television, the NASA app, and online at:
