SpaceX’s next robotic cargo mission to the International Space Station has been cleared for its Thursday (Nov. 9) liftoff.
NASA and SpaceX teams accomplished a launch readiness review (LRR) on Wednesday (Nov. 8) for the CRS-29 mission, which is able to send a Dragon capsule to the International Space Station (ISS).
Every part went well with the review, so the CRS-29 launch stays heading in the right direction for Thursday. If all goes in keeping with plan, the Dragon will lift off atop a Falcon 9 rocket from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center (KSC) in Florida at 8:28 p.m. EST (0128 GMT on Nov. 10).
You may watch the launch live here at Space.com, courtesy of NASA, or directly via the agency. Coverage will begin at 8 p.m. EST (0100 GMT). And the weather should cooperate; forecasts predict a 95% probability of conditions adequate to permit liftoff, Melody Lovin, launch weather officer with Cape Canaveral Space Force Station’s forty fifth Weather Squadron, said during a post-LRR call with reporters on Wednesday afternoon.
If all goes in keeping with plan, the Dragon will arrive on the ISS around 5:20 a.m. EST (1020 GMT) on Saturday (Nov. 11). You may watch the rendezvous and docking here at Space.com as well.
As its name suggests, CRS-29 is the twenty ninth robotic resupply mission that SpaceX will fly to the orbiting lab for NASA. (CRS stands for “Industrial Resupply Services.”) Dragon is carrying up greater than 6,500 kilos (2,950 kilograms) of supplies and scientific hardware on this run, including NASA’s AWE and ILLUMA-T experiments.
AWE (short for “Atmospheric Waves Experiment”) will study gravity waves, disturbances in Earth’s atmosphere akin to the waves created when a pebble plunks right into a pond. (Gravity waves are very different than gravitational waves, that are ripples in the material of space-time brought on by the acceleration of massive objects reminiscent of black holes and neutron stars.)
ILLUMA-T (“Integrated Laser Communications Relay Demonstration Low Earth Orbit User Modem and Amplifier Terminal”) will test high-speed communications in collaboration with NASA’s Laser Communications Relay Demonstration (LCRD) mission, which launched in December 2021.
After ILLUMA-T is installed on the outside of the ISS and checked out, it is going to begin tracking and communicating with LCRD, a ride-along instrument on a U.S. Department of Defense satellite that resides in geosynchronous orbit, greater than 22,000 miles (35,400 kilometers) above Earth. The ISS, in contrast, circles at a mean altitude of about 250 miles (400 km).
Together, ILLUMA-T and LCRD will “create NASA’s first two-way laser communications relay system,” agency officials wrote in an overview of CRS-29’s science gear.
“Laser communications can complement the radio frequency systems that almost all space-based missions currently use to send data to and from Earth,” they added. “The ILLUMA-T demonstration also paves the way in which for putting laser communications terminals on spacecraft orbiting the moon or Mars.”
The Dragon may also carry up quite a lot of food on CRS-29, including some seasonal specialties.
“We have some fun holiday treats for the crew, like chocolate, pumpkin spice cappuccino, rice cakes, turkey, duck, quail, seafood, cranberry sauce and mochi,” Dana Weigel, deputy program manager for NASA’s International Space Station Program, said during Wednesday’s media call.
Dragon will spend a couple of month docked to the ISS on CRS-29, then come back to Earth with about 3,800 kilos (1,724 kg) of cargo, in keeping with NASA officials.
Dragon is the one cargo vehicle with this return capability. The opposite two robotic freighters which are operational today — Northop Grumman’s Cygnus craft and Russia’s Progress vehicle — are designed to burn up in Earth’s atmosphere when their orbital missions are over.
Tonight’s launch was originally scheduled to occur on Nov. 5, but NASA and SpaceX pushed it back two days to supply more time for prelaunch processing. The liftoff was then delayed two additional days, so teams could work a difficulty with one in all the Dragon’s Draco thrusters.