{"id":155414,"date":"2023-01-13T06:22:58","date_gmt":"2023-01-13T12:22:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2023\/01\/spacex-dragon-spacecraft-returns-nasa-cargo-to-earth-after-six-weeks-in-space"},"modified":"2023-01-13T06:22:58","modified_gmt":"2023-01-13T12:22:58","slug":"spacex-dragon-spacecraft-returns-nasa-cargo-to-earth-after-six-weeks-in-space","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2023\/01\/spacex-dragon-spacecraft-returns-nasa-cargo-to-earth-after-six-weeks-in-space","title":{"rendered":"SpaceX Dragon spacecraft returns NASA cargo to Earth after six weeks in space"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a class=\"aligncenter blog-photo\" href=\"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog.images\/spacex-dragon-spacecraft-returns-nasa-cargo-to-earth-after-six-weeks-in-space2.jpg\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p>A SpaceX Cargo Dragon 2 spacecraft has safely returned to Earth after delivering several tons of NASA supplies to the International Space Station (ISS).<\/p>\n<p>A little over <a href=\"https:\/\/www.teslarati.com\/spacex-dragon-delivers-upgraded-space-station-solar-arrays\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">six weeks after Falcon 9 launched<\/a> SpaceX\u2019s 26th Commercial Resupply Services 2 (CRS2) mission for NASA, Dragon departed the ISS on January 9th. Efficiently lowering its orbit with several small Draco thrusters took about 36 hours, and reusable Dragon 2 capsule C211 eventually slowed to the point that it began impacting Earth\u2019s atmosphere. Using its ablative heat shield like a brake pad, Dragon slowed from a velocity of 7.5 kilometers per second (16,800 mph) to about 155 meters per second (~350 mph) before beginning parachute deployment.<\/p>\n<p>At 5:19 am on January 11th, the Dragon capsule gently splashed down off the coast of Tampa, Florida, and was quickly secured by a SpaceX recovery ship. Once onboard, the capsule was opened up, and cargo fresh from orbit was loaded onto a helicopter as quickly as possible. That system \u2013 primarily created to rapidly transport astronauts back to NASA medical facilities \u2013 also means that scientists can get access to their recovered ISS experiments just a handful of hours after Cargo Dragon splashes down.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A SpaceX Cargo Dragon 2 spacecraft has safely returned to Earth after delivering several tons of NASA supplies to the International Space Station (ISS). A little over six weeks after Falcon 9 launched SpaceX\u2019s 26th Commercial Resupply Services 2 (CRS2) mission for NASA, Dragon departed the ISS on January 9th. Efficiently lowering its orbit with [\u2026]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":396,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11,1514],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-155414","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-biotech-medical","category-space-travel"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/155414","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/396"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=155414"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/155414\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=155414"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=155414"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=155414"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}