Cargo Dragon splashes down and is recovered successfully
A SpaceX cargo Dragon capsule was recovered successfully earlier today after it splashed down off the coast of California.
The spacecraft carried back to Earth about 6,700 pounds of supplies and scientific experiments designed to take advantage of the space station’s microgravity environment after undocking at 12:05 p.m., May 23, from the zenith port of the space station’s Harmony module.
Some of the scientific hardware and samples Dragon will return to Earth include MISSE-20 (Multipurpose International Space Station Experiment), which exposed various materials to space, including radiation shielding and detection materials, solar sails and reflective coatings, ceramic composites for reentry spacecraft studies, and resins for potential use in heat shields. Samples were retrieved on the exterior of the station and can improve knowledge of how these materials respond to ultraviolet radiation, atomic oxygen, charged particles, thermal cycling, and other factors.
Other cargo returned included a robot hand that tested its grasping and handling capabilities in weightlessness, as well as other experiments.
The capsule itself spent three months in orbit after launching at the end of April.
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A SpaceX cargo Dragon capsule was recovered successfully earlier today after it splashed down off the coast of California.
The spacecraft carried back to Earth about 6,700 pounds of supplies and scientific experiments designed to take advantage of the space station’s microgravity environment after undocking at 12:05 p.m., May 23, from the zenith port of the space station’s Harmony module.
Some of the scientific hardware and samples Dragon will return to Earth include MISSE-20 (Multipurpose International Space Station Experiment), which exposed various materials to space, including radiation shielding and detection materials, solar sails and reflective coatings, ceramic composites for reentry spacecraft studies, and resins for potential use in heat shields. Samples were retrieved on the exterior of the station and can improve knowledge of how these materials respond to ultraviolet radiation, atomic oxygen, charged particles, thermal cycling, and other factors.
Other cargo returned included a robot hand that tested its grasping and handling capabilities in weightlessness, as well as other experiments.
The capsule itself spent three months in orbit after launching at the end of April.
Readers!
My annual February birthday fund-raising drive for Behind the Black is now over. Thank you to everyone who donated or subscribed. While not a record-setter, the donations were more than sufficient and slightly above average.
As I have said many times before, I can’t express what it means to me to get such support, especially as no one is required to pay anything to read my work. Thank you all again!
For those readers who like my work here at Behind the Black and haven't contributed so far, please consider donating or subscribing. My analysis of space, politics, and culture, taken from the perspective of an historian, is almost always on the money and ahead of the game. For example, in 2020 I correctly predicted that the COVID panic was unnecessary, that the virus was apparently simply a variation of the flu, that masks were not simply pointless but if worn incorrectly were a health threat, that the lockdowns were a disaster and did nothing to stop the spread of COVID. Every one of those 2020 conclusions has turned out right.
Your help allows me to do this kind of intelligent analysis. I take no advertising or sponsors, so my reporting isn't influenced by donations by established space or drug companies. Instead, I rely entirely on donations and subscriptions from my readers, which gives me the freedom to write what I think, unencumbered by outside influences.
You can support me either by giving a one-time contribution or a regular subscription. There are four ways of doing so:
1. Zelle: This is the only internet method that charges no fees. All you have to do is use the Zelle link at your internet bank and give my name and email address (zimmerman at nasw dot org). What you donate is what I get.
2. Patreon: Go to my website there and pick one of five monthly subscription amounts, or by making a one-time donation.
3. A Paypal Donation or subscription:
4. Donate by check, payable to Robert Zimmerman and mailed to
Behind The Black
c/o Robert Zimmerman
P.O.Box 1262
Cortaro, AZ 85652
You can also support me by buying one of my books, as noted in the boxes interspersed throughout the webpage or shown in the menu above.
You never hesitate to announce that SLS / Orion is a waste of money (it is) but announce “zero gravity science” from the ISS like it isn’t also absurd snake oil.
“Zero Gravity science” aka torturing astronauts for fun and profit.
We know the effects of zero g for long periods, not good. For short periods no problem.
Now do 0.16 g and 0.38 g.
Send up two starships, launch a connecting hub with a despinable docking port and two 310 foot long cables on a Falcon 9. Rendezvous, connect them together and slow spin at 1 and a quarter RPM, the connected Starships on a 310 foot long radius cable to 0.16 g.
Dock a Crew Dragon and have the 4 person crew hang out for a month. Then do two months, 3 months and finally 6 months.
Remove crew, undock, despin and send the 2 starships home for restocking..
Now repeat at 0.38 g and go right to 6 months since the low g missions worked out the kinks. Yeah, you’ll end up at 1.9 RPM to get the 0.38 g but, OK
Now you are doing life science that matters.