Spacex Dragon Module Set To Return To Earth

UPDATE - WATCH DRAGON SPLASH DOWN LIVE SPACE SPACEX'S DRAGON MODULE HAS BEEN RELEASED FROM THE INTERNATIONAL SPACE STATION, AND IS ON ITS WAY TOWARD THE PACIFIC OCEAN LOADED WITH 1,455 POUNDS OF RETURN CARGO.After making the historic journey as the first commercial spacecraft to visit the International Space Station, SpaceX's Dragon spacecraft will return to Earth today.The return is by no means an easy operation. In fact, today, Dragon is the only spacecraft capable of returning a significant amount of cargo from the space station. The other cargo vehicles serving the space station - from Russia, Japan and the European Space Agency - can carry cargo up but all are destroyed after leaving the station. While Dragon was attached to the space station, astronauts unloaded 1,146 pounds of cargo including food, other crew provisions and student experiments. They then packed the spacecraft with 1,455 pounds of cargo that will be returned to NASA on Earth including hardware used for experiments, spacewalks and station systems. Astronauts have closed the hatch on the vehicle, and the module has been released from the station. Dragon is targeted to land in the Pacific Ocean, a few hundred miles west of Southern California, at approximately 8:44 AM Pacific/11:44 AM Eastern on Thursday, May 31st. The spacecraft returns to Earth like a burning comet, protected from extreme reentry temperatures by its powerful PICA-X heat shield. The landing location is controlled by firing the Draco thrusters during reentry. In a carefully timed sequence of events, dual drogue parachutes deploy at 45,000 feet to stabilize and slow the spacecraft. Full deployment of the drogues triggers the release of the main parachutes, each 116 feet in diameter, at about 10,000 feet, with the drogues detaching from the spacecraft. Main parachutes further slow the spacecraft's descent to approximately 16 to 18 feet per second. SOURCE "SpaceX" By "33rd Square" "Subscribe to 33rd Square"For the latest please visit www.33rdsquare.com

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