Two cargo spacecraft en route to space station
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SpaceX’s CRS-19 Dragon spacecraft launches atop a Falcon 9 rocket from Space Launch Complex 40 at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida. Credit: NASA/Kim Shiflett
Two unpiloted cargo spacecraft are racing to catch up to and rendezvous with the International Space Station after flawless launches on opposite sides of the planet.
At 17:29 UTC Dec. 5, 2019, SpaceX launched its CRS-19 Dragon spacecraft atop a Falcon 9 from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station. About 16 hours later, at 9:34 UTC Dec. 6, Russia launched its Progress MS-13 freighter atop a Soyuz 2.1a rocket from Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan.
“It’s always great when we can get a new vehicle on its way to the space station, so we’re very excited,” Kenny Todd, space station operations integration manager, said of Dragon in a NASA news release. “We’re looking forward to getting the Dragon on board here in the next couple of days.”
This particular Dragon spacecraft is on its third trip to the outpost. Inside is 256 kilograms of crew supplies, 977 kilograms of science investigations (including genetically modified mice), 65 kilograms of spacewalk equipment, 306 kilograms of vehicle hardware and 15 kilograms of computer resources.
Externally, CRS-19 Dragon has 924 kilograms inside its unpressurized trunk section, which includes a new lithium-ion battery and the Japanese Hyperspectral Imager Suite. In total, the spacecraft has roughly 2,600 kilograms bound for the ISS.
Dragon is slated to get to within 10 meters of the outpost on the morning of Dec. 8. It will be captured by the 17.6-meter-long Canadarm2 remote manipulator system at 11:00 UTC. At the robotics workstation inside the space station will be two members of the six-person Expedition 61 crew.
After capture, ground-based controllers will then command the arm to berth the spacecraft at the Earth-facing port of the Harmony module where astronauts will work to open the hatch and distribute the cargo throughout the outpost. CRS-19 will stay at the ISS until at least Jan. 6, 2020.
Meanwhile, Progress MS-13 is expected to dock autonomously with the Earth-facing port of the Pirs module at 10:38 UTC Dec. 9. Loaded with 2,487 kilograms of dry cargo and propellant, the resupply vehicle is slated to remain at the outpost until mid-summer 2020.
These two vehicles will increase the number of spacecraft at the ISS to five. The other three are the two crew vehicles for the six-person expedition — Soyuz MS-13 and Soyuz MS-15 — and the NG-12 Cygnus spacecraft, which arrived in early November.
Just two weeks from now, Boeing is scheduled to launch another spacecraft to the International Space Station — the Starliner Orbital Flight Test mission. This is the first flight of the spacecraft, which is designed to carry astronauts to the outpost starting as early as next year.
Starliner will launch atop an Atlas 5 rocket in an “N22” configuration, meaning it will have no payload fairing, two strap-on solid rocket motors and a dual-engine Centaur upper stage.
As of Dec. 6, Starliner is slated to take to the skies at 11:59 UTC Dec. 19 and dock with the forward end of the Harmony module where there is an international docking adapter. This is the same location SpaceX’s Crew Dragon arrived at early in 2019.
Once at the outpost, Starliner will stay for four or five days before undocking, deorbiting and landing in the Western United States as early as Dec. 24.
Boeing’s Starliner spacecraft for the Orbital Flight Test mission sits atop an Atlas 5 rocket at Space Launch Complex 41 at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida. Credit: Boeing
