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Month: April 2024

NASA does Dragon shuffle prepping for Starliner launch

NASA does Dragon shuffle prepping for Starliner launch

Parking is at a premium at the International Space Station, but NASA and SpaceX cleared out one spot as a cargo Dragon spacecraft completed its trip home with a splashdown off the Florida coast early Tuesday.

NASA still needs to shift the remaining Dragon spacecraft from its spot to clear the path for next week’s launch of Boeing’s CST-100 Starliner.

The cargo Dragon from the CRS-30 resupply mission that arrived in March was attached to the ISS for more than 36 days. It returned for a 1:38 a.m. splashdown off Tampa, carrying more than 4,100 pounds of science experiments and other supplies back to Earth.

It departed the ISS Harmony module, which has two docking ports, on Sunday.

But now NASA wants the four members of Crew-8 to perform valet duties. They will climb aboard the Crew Dragon Endeavour that remains docked at Harmony’s forward port, and fly it around and redock to the open port, called the zenith port.

NASA’s Matthew Dominick, Michael Barratt and Jeanette Epps along with Roscosmos’ Alexander Grebenkin will take the short road trip at 7:45 a.m. Thursday and be back attached to the ISS at 8:28 a.m. read more