NASA prepares for a big Easter weekend
The US Space Agency has a busy few days ahead as a trio of International Space Station (ISS) residents prepare to return to Earth this weekend, and a critical SpaceX Dragon freighter is readied for launch on Monday.
NASA astronaut Don Pettit and Roscosmos cosmonauts Alexey Ovchinin and Ivan Vagner, at the end of their seven-month stint aboard the outpost, are due to undock from the ISS’s Rassvet module in their Soyuz MS-26 spacecraft on Saturday, April 19, at 17:57 EDT, and land in Kazakhstan a few hours later.
While any crewed spaceflight is always a tense time for controllers, focus is also on the next SpaceX Dragon mission to the ISS, due for launch on Monday, April 21. Damage sustained by Northrop Grumman’s NG-22 Cygnus freighter has meant managers were forced to shuffle payloads on the Dragon to ensure the ISS has sufficient supplies to sustain its current crew complement.
Monday’s launch should result in the Dragon freighter reaching the ISS on Tuesday, April 22, at 08:20 EDT. The spacecraft will carry 6,700 pounds of much-needed station supplies as well as science experiments.
A space agency source told The Register that the Cygnus incident and subsequent payload reallocation caused considerable grief for scientists who had found their experiments bumped to later flights to make room for more supplies. The same source also noted that should the Dragon fail to launch or not reach the ISS, the term “decrewing” was raised as a possible scenario.
It is highly unlikely that the ISS would eventually be abandoned and left to run autonomously in the event of a failure. More likely, the crew number would be reduced to conserve supplies and keep the station operational.
If required, the ISS can operate with a skeleton crew. However, they would only keep the outpost running and be unable to conduct onboard experiments. The station ran with just two crew members for a substantial chunk of its early life, but the number is less than ideal considering the capabilities of the space station as it is now.
Earlier this year, SpaceX boss Elon Musk called for the outpost to be deorbited by 2027. With Northrop Grumman’s next Cygnus launch scheduled for later this year and Boeing’s Starliner still grounded, Musk’s spacecraft represent the only route to the ISS from US soil. ®
