A few hours ago, SpaceX’s Dragon spacecraft ended its CRS-30 (Cargo Resupply Service 30) mission for NASA splashing down smoothly off the Florida Coast. The Dragon left the International Space Station a little more than 36 hours earlier. For SpaceX, this was the 10th mission of the 2nd contract with NASA to transport supplies to the Station with the new version of the Dragon cargo spacecraft.
Shortly after the splashdown, SpaceX’s recovery ship went to retrieve the Dragon to transport it to the coast. The cargo brought back to Earth will be delivered to NASA within a few hours. The Dragon spacecraft reached the International Space Station on March 23, 2024.
The Dragon spacecraft brought back to Earth more than 1,800 kg (about 4,100 lbs) of mixed cargo that include various scientific experiments and biological samples. A part of the samples is contained in the freezers because they need to be kept at low temperatures. SpaceX is the only American company that has a spacecraft capable of bringing intact cargo back to Earth so the Dragon missions are really important for NASA. Samples produced during many of the experiments conducted on the International Space Station may require in-depth analyzes possible only in specialized laboratories on Earth.
The departure of the Dragon space cargo ship left a docking port available on the International Space Station’s Harmony module. On Thursday, May 2, another SpaceX spacecraft, the Crew Dragon Endeavour, will be moved in a maneuver that will lead it to dock at the now available port. At that point, another Harmony module port will be available and will be used by Boeing’s Starliner spacecraft, which is now scheduled to launch on May 6 or 7, depending on your time zone. After many delays, the time for a crewed test flight for the Starliner may finally have arrived.
Meanwhile, the next resupply mission for the Dragon cargo spacecraft could begin in June 2024 but that’s a tentative schedule. The traffic around the International Space Station continues to increase, so mission dates are more subject to change than ever.
