SpaceX’s latest Dragon mission will breathe more fire at the space station

“The engines of our capsule are not pointed out in the right direction for an optimal boost,” said Sarah Walker, Director of the Dragon Mission Management of SpaceX. “Thus, this trunk module has motors pointed out in the right direction to maximize the efficiency of the use of propellants.”

When NASA says it’s a good time, SpaceX controllers will order Draco propellants to light and gently speed up the huge 450 -ton complex. All in all, the restart kit can add about 20 mi / h, or 9 meters per second, at the already unpleasant speed of the space station, according to Walker.

Spetch said it is roughly equivalent to the total restart impulse provided by Russian and a half Russian increase vehicles. This represents approximately a third to a quarter of the maintenance in total orbit which the ISS needs in one year.

“The boost kit will help maintain the altitude of the laboratory in orbit, from September, with a series of burns planned periodically throughout the fall of 2025,” said Spetch.

After a few months moored at the ISS, the Dragon Dragon capsule will leave and head to an assisted splash parachute in the Pacific Ocean off the coast of California. SpaceX will recover the pressure capsule to fly again, while the trunk containing the restart kit flows and will burn in the atmosphere.

Although this mission is the 33rd SpaceX freight flight to the ISS under the auspices of the NASA several billion dollars commercial service contract, it is also the 50th Dragon Mission of SpaceX at the outpost. This statement includes 17 flights from the human classified crew dragon.

“With CRS-33, we will mark our 50th trip to ISS,” said Walker. “Just incredible. Together, these missions have (transported) much more than 300,000 pounds of freight and supplies in the orbit laboratory and much more than 1,000 scientific and research projects which not only help us to understand how to live and work effectively in space … but also directly by directly contributing to critical research that serves our life here on earth.”

Future Dragon Trunks will be able to respond to a restart kit or useful non -felt scientific loads, depending on the needs of NASA at the space station.

The design of the Dragon restart kit is a smaller version of what SpaceX will build for a much larger dragon chest under a contract of $ 843 million signed with NASA last year for the American Déforbit vehicle. This inflated dragon will dock with the ISS and return it to the atmosphere after the laboratory downgrading in the early 2030s. The orbit vehicle will have 46 Thrusters Draco—16 To control the orientation of crafts and 30 in the trunk to provide the necessary impetus to take out the station outside the orbit.