NASA
In the near future, SpaceX plans to transition from recovering its Dragon capsules by sea after splashdowns in the Pacific Ocean, with a new approach that involves concluding the process off the coast of Florida.
SpaceX can refine its procedures for returning Dragon capsules to Earth, significantly reducing the risk that a small particle from the spacecraft’s trunk section might accidentally harm someone, causing injury, damage, or even loss of life.
“After five years of successfully landing offshore in Florida, SpaceX has decided to relocate its Dragon restoration efforts to the West Coast, announced Sarah Walker, Director of Dragon Mission Administration at SpaceX.”
Public security
For several years, landowners have discovered fragments on their property, which originated from the spacecraft’s trunk – an unpressurized section located behind the capsule, used for carrying astronauts or cargo during missions to and from the International Space Station.
SpaceX successfully recovered all 21 of its initial Dragon cargo missions by splashing them down in the Pacific Ocean, roughly southwest of Los Angeles. As SpaceX launched its upgraded human-rated Dragon spacecraft in 2019, the company relocated splashdowns to the Atlantic Ocean and Gulf of Mexico to optimize proximity to its refurbishment and launch facilities at Cape Canaveral, Florida. The proximity of Kennedy Space Center to Florida offered significant benefits, including expedited transfer of astronauts and critical cargo back to NASA, as well as reduced turnaround times between missions.
Prior to its successor, the original Dragon spacecraft, commonly referred to as Dragon 1, intentionally jettisoned its trunk following the de-orbit burn, allowing the trunk to plunge harmlessly into the Pacific Ocean. SpaceX’s latest Dragon model, dubbed Dragon 2, features a revised re-entry strategy, where the trunk is discarded prior to the de-orbit burn. The spacecraft’s trunk stayed in orbit following each Dragon mission, while the capsule executed a controlled reentry into the atmosphere. Without a propulsion system, the unpowered trunk, constructed from composite materials, typically takes only a few weeks or a few months to re-enter the atmosphere, with no control over its descent or entry point.
As the trunk enters the upper atmosphere, air resistance gradually decreases its orbital velocity, ultimately causing it to fall out of orbit. The amount of aerodynamic drag the trunk encounters is largely dependent on variations in solar activity.
SpaceX, in collaboration with NASA, whose funding played a significant role in the development of the Dragon spacecraft, initially determined that the trunk would burn up completely upon re-entry into the atmosphere, posing no risk of survival and potential harm to people or property during descent. Despite initial expectations, this was not the outcome.
When a 90-pound piece of a SpaceX Dragon spacecraft broke away from the International Space Station and landed in North Carolina. Concurrently, a local homeowner in an adjacent city stumbled upon a similar artifact that appeared to originate from the same Dragon mission.
The occasions marked a milestone in April when nearly a 90-pound parcel was successfully retrieved from a Dragon capsule, landing safely on a farm in Saskatchewan, Canada. In a subsequent joint investigation with NASA, SpaceX determined that the debris particles had fallen from orbit in February. Just this month, a team of SpaceX personnel arrived at the farm to recover the wreckage.
Spacecraft debris from NASA’s Dragon program has made unexpected appearances in recent years, with items falling to the ground in Colorado last year, and a farmer in Australia discovering fragments of a Dragon capsule on his property in 2022?
