Friday will see a new consequence for the International Space Station ( ISS ) as a SpaceX Dragon space vehicle is used to boost its altitude for the first prison term . As drag bring on the place station , its altitude bit by bit put down over time , and so it needs to be given an occasional push to keep it at its right altitude , around 250 Roman mile from the Earth ’s surface .
The reboost is scheduled for today , November 8 , as one of the Dragons that is currently docked to the space station will can its thruster for around 12.5 transactions . There are currently two Dragons dock — one of which carried bunch and one of which carried cargo to the post . The payload vehicle will do the boost maneuver . As this is the first meter this has been attempted , NASA and SpaceX personnel will honor the event cautiously .
“ The data that we ’re going to pick up from this reboost and altitude control demonstration will be very helpful , ” say Jared Metter , SpaceX director of flight reliability . Metter also said that the data point would be important for a future caper of SpaceX : deorbiting the space stationin the 2030s when it comes to the end of its living .
The job of boosting the quad station has traditionally been performed by Russian Soyuz space vehicle , but NASA has been look for another solvent to lessen its dependency on Russia , peculiarly follow the encroachment of Ukraine . The idea of using a Crew Dragon for reboosting not only the ISS , but also other missions such as theHubble Space Telescope , has been raised in late years as the vehicles have been frequently used for pack both astronauts and cargo to the station and back .
There were also occasional trial of using Northrop Grumman Cygnus cargo fomite to reboost the place , but these cargo vehicles are designed to be expendable — they are commit to the place to carry cargo , but then are disposed of in place rather than landing back on Earth — so they are not ideally suited to reboosting . The Dragon is also not specifically designed to do this job , as its main task is to carry cargo , but the pick to use it will give more data on eventual ISS deorbit plans . The Dragon arrived at the place carry around 6,000 quid of supply this hebdomad and will continue docked until it return to Earth .
There have been some unusual issues with SpaceX launching using its Falcon 9 rocket recently , which are notable as the rocket is broadly so reliable . But NASA said it was positive that SpaceX could continue to do the Book of Job .
“ We work very closely with SpaceX on everything that we do comparative to these Dragon launches , ” allege Bill Spetch , operations consolidation director for the NASA ’s International Space Station Program . “ They partake data with us very freely , and we work through all the issues jointly . We plain always wield a top priority on the safety of the vehicles come to ISS , and so that really has n’t convert for us . ”
