SpaceX will launch its twenty eighth cargo mission to the International Space Station (ISS) for NASA today (June 3), and you’ll be able to watch the motion live.
A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket is scheduled to launch a robotic Dragon cargo capsule toward the orbiting lab today at 12:35 p.m. EDT (1635 GMT) from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida.
Watch it here at Space.com, courtesy of NASA, or directly via the space agency. There isn’t any guarantee the Dragon will get off the bottom on time, nonetheless; in truth, there is a 70% probability that the weather won’t cooperate today. If the launch doesn’t occur today, the following opportunity comes tomorrow (June 4) at 12:12 p.m. EDT (1612 GMT).
Related: Facts about SpaceX’s Dragon capsule
The Falcon 9 will carry the uncrewed Dragon capsule to orbit on a rendezvous course for the ISS. Following stage separation, the Falcon 9’s first stage will perform a boost-back burn and land on SpaceX’s autonomous droneship A Shortfall of Gravitas, which will likely be stationed within the Atlantic Ocean.
The cargo Dragon will spend just over 40 hours on an intercept course with the International Space Station. Dragon will meet up with the ISS early Monday morning (June 5), with docking to the Harmony module’s zenith port scheduled for five:36 a.m. EDT (0936 GMT). You possibly can watch that here at Space.com too, when the time comes.
Dragon will carry a number of thousand kilos of science investigation supplies and provisions for the station’s crew. A delayed launch of Northrop Grumman’s Cygnus ISS resupply vehicle, NG-19, prompted NASA to transfer a few of that mission’s intended cargo to Dragon as a way to keep the space station’s cache from diminishing an excessive amount of.
During a prelaunch press briefing on Tuesday (May 30), NASA’s ISS chief scientist Kirt Costello said that CRS-28 is “making up for the delays we had in our NG Cygnus vehicle arriving at Station. So, we’re sending up plenty of extra logistics crew supplies for the crew to maintain them going throughout the tip of the yr.”
The scientific research aboard CRS-28 brings recent experiments to the ISS, in addition to replenishing materials for over 30 ongoing projects. The CLINGER technology demonstration for autonomous space station docking systems, microgravity-induced DNA mutation of telomeres and blue energy thunderstorm discharge research are amongst a few of the recent science experiments going up on this mission.
Half a dozen cubesats are tucked away onboard the CRS-28 Dragon as well, all but one in every of that are student-run projects from the Canadian Space Agency’s Canadian Cubeaat program. The sixth comes from the Aerospace Corporation, in partnership with the Air Force Research Laboratory and Space Systems Command. It’s called Moonlighter, and it is going to provide the platform for a space-based cybersecurity hacking challenge.
CRS-28 also carries the following pair of iROSAs (International Space Station Roll Out Solar Arrays), that are being attached above the ISS’ existing solar panels as a way to augment station electricity needs. Those will likely be faraway from Dragon’s trunk using the station’s robotic arm, then installed by NASA astronauts over the course of two spacewalks. Once operational, the complete complement of iROSAs will boost the orbiting lab’s power supply by 20% to 30%.
SpaceX’s cargo Dragon is designed as a reusable vehicle, and can return scientific samples from over 34 investigations aboard the ISS at the tip of its stay on the station. Like its crewed counterpart, the cargo Dragon comes back to Earth for soft, parachute-aided ocean splashdowns.
