Soon after re-getting into Earth’s atmosphere, SpaceX’s uncrewed Dragon cargo spacecraft produced a parachute-assisted splashdown off the coast of Tampa, Florida at four:58 p.m. EDT on Saturday, April 15. This marked the return of the company’s 27th contracted cargo resupply mission to the International Space Station (ISS) for NASA. The spacecraft carried about four,300 pounds of useful scientific experiments and other cargo back to Earth.
Following commands from ground controllers at SpaceX in Hawthorne, California, Dragon undocked at 11:05 a.m. from the forward port of the station’s Harmony module. At the time of undocking the station was flying more than the Indian Ocean.
Dragon arrived at the space station on March 16 as SpaceX’s 27th Industrial Resupply Solutions mission for NASA, delivering additional than six,000 pounds of study investigations, crew supplies, and station hardware. It was launched on March 14 on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from Launch Complicated 39A at Kennedy Space Center.
Some of the scientific investigations that Dragon is carrying involve:
- Space tomato harvest: Samples from the Choose-and-Consume Salad-Crop Productivity, Nutritional Worth, and Acceptability to Supplement the International Space Station Meals Method (Veg-05) experiment will be returning to Earth for evaluation. Astronauts grew dwarf tomatoes in the station’s Veggie miniature greenhouse and performed 3 harvests at 90, 97, and 104 days. They froze tomatoes, water samples, and swabs of the development hardware to examine the effects of light excellent and fertilizer on fruit production, microbial security, and nutritional worth. The capability to develop plants in space for fresh meals and an enhanced crew living knowledge is critical for future extended-duration missions. The hardware could be adapted for use on Earth to present fresh create for these devoid of access to gardens and as horticultural therapy for older individuals and individuals with disabilities.
- Developing greater excellent crystals: Hicari, an investigation from JAXA (Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency), tested a development strategy and made crystals of a silicon-germanium (SiGe) semiconductor employing the Japanese Experiment Module-Gradient Heating Furnace (JEM-GHF). This crystal development strategy could assistance improvement of additional effective solar cells and semiconductor-primarily based electronics. The space-made crystals are returning to Earth for evaluation.
- Analyzing aging arteries: Astronauts can knowledge accelerated arterial wall stiffening and thickening immediately after six months in space, and a day-to-day session of aerobic workout alone may well not be enough to counteract these effects. Vascular Aging, an investigation from CSA (Canadian Space Agency), monitors these adjustments employing artery ultrasounds, blood samples, glucose tolerance tests, and wearable sensors. Final results could aid determine and assess threat to astronaut cardiovascular wellness and point to mechanisms for decreasing that threat. For the aging population on Earth, understanding the mechanisms behind arterial stiffness could present insight to guide prevention and therapy. Blood samples collected for the investigation are returning to Earth for evaluation.
- Fire security: Strong Fuel Ignition and Extinction – Development and Extinction Limit (SoFIE-Gel) research burning in microgravity, like how fuel temperature impacts material flammability. The investigation could enhance security of crew members on future missions by escalating understanding of early fire development behavior, informing choice of fire-resistant spacecraft cabin supplies, validating flammability models, and assisting to ascertain optimal fire suppression approaches. Studying flames in space devoid of the complications of buoyancy also aids enhance laptop models of combustion for terrestrial applications. Gel samples from the investigation are returning to Earth for additional evaluation.