Miami, United States.- An unmanned Dragon resupply capsule belonging to SpaceX was detached from the Harmony module and began its journey back to Earth this Sunday, January 23, has two tons of materials from scientific experiments.
The National Aeronautics and Space Administration, better known as NASA, reported that the Dragon capsule began its return to Earth from International Space Station (ISS) loaded with experiments, whose arrival is scheduled for this Monday, January 24, off the coast of Florida in the United States.
“Dragon will now fire its thrusters to move to a safe distance from the space station and controllers will order an orbit start on Monday, January 24,” NASA said.
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After re-entering the Earth’s atmosphere, the spacecraft will make a parachute-assisted splashdown around 4:05 p.m. EST Monday (9:05 p.m. GMT) near the coast of Panama City in northwestern Florida.
The capsule was launched on December 21 on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from the Kennedy Space Center in the POT, in central Florida, and reached the ISS in less than 24 hours.
The spacecraft then delivered nearly three tons of hardware, research, and supplies to the crew.
The agency explained that the splashdown near the Florida coast allows researchers at the Kennedy Space Center to quickly collect the cargo “with minimal exposure of the sample to Earth’s gravity.”
Among the cargo are samples of protein crystals grown on the station for the Advanced Nano Step experiment.
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At the Kennedy Space Center, scientists are scheduled to analyze the samples to develop new materials and drugs in space and to assess the impacts of weightlessness on biochemistry.
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