dragon飞船将在今天下午离开国际空间站，返回地球

这是NASA的报道

The Expedition 31 crew of the International Space Station spent much of the day Tuesday working with the SpaceX Dragon cargo vehicle, reviewing procedures for the departure of the first commercial spacecraft to visit the station and packing it with items for return to Earth.

Dragon, which delivered 1,014 pounds of non-critical cargo on its demonstration flight to the station, was cleared unanimously Tuesday by the station’s Mission Management Team for unberthing early Thursday. In reverse order of how Dragon was captured and berthed Friday, the crew will use the station’s Canadarm2 robotic arm to detach the vehicle from the Earth-facing port of the station’s Harmony node at 4:05 a.m., move it away from the station and release it at 5:35 a.m. for return to Earth. The SpaceX team in Hawthorne, Calif., will run Dragon through about five hours of orbital operations before commanding it to a splashdown for recovery off the California coast.

这是SPACEX网站的报道


Hawthorne, CA - After making the historic journey as the first commercial spacecraft to visit the International Space Station, SpaceX's Dragon spacecraft will return to Earth tomorrow.

The return is by no means an easy operation. In fact, today, Dragon is the only spacecraft capable of returning a significant amount of cargo from the space station. The other cargo vehicles serving the space station - from Russia, Japan and the European Space Agency - can carry cargo up but all are destroyed after leaving the station.

While Dragon was attached to the space station, astronauts unloaded 1,146 pounds of cargo including food, other crew provisions and student experiments. They then packed the spacecraft with 1,455 pounds of cargo that will be returned to NASA on Earth including hardware used for experiments, spacewalks and station systems.

This morning, astronauts closed the hatch on the vehicle. Early Thursday, at approximately 1:00 AM Pacific/4:00 AM Eastern, they will use the space station's robotic arm to pull the spacecraft from the station. Two hours later, the robotic arm will release Dragon and the spacecraft will begin its journey home.

Dragon is targeted to land in the Pacific Ocean, a few hundred miles west of Southern California, at approximately 8:44 AM Pacific/11:44 AM Eastern on Thursday, May 31st. The spacecraft returns to Earth like a burning comet, protected from extreme reentry temperatures by its powerful PICA-X heat shield. The landing location is controlled by firing the Draco thrusters during reentry.




按照时间表，美国东部时间4:00（北京时间17:00）左右开始脱离。美国东部时间11：44（北京时间1号凌晨0:44）左右降落太平洋。




这是NASA的报道

The Expedition 31 crew of the International Space Station spent much of the day Tuesday working with the SpaceX Dragon cargo vehicle, reviewing procedures for the departure of the first commercial spacecraft to visit the station and packing it with items for return to Earth.

Dragon, which delivered 1,014 pounds of non-critical cargo on its demonstration flight to the station, was cleared unanimously Tuesday by the station’s Mission Management Team for unberthing early Thursday. In reverse order of how Dragon was captured and berthed Friday, the crew will use the station’s Canadarm2 robotic arm to detach the vehicle from the Earth-facing port of the station’s Harmony node at 4:05 a.m., move it away from the station and release it at 5:35 a.m. for return to Earth. The SpaceX team in Hawthorne, Calif., will run Dragon through about five hours of orbital operations before commanding it to a splashdown for recovery off the California coast.

这是SPACEX网站的报道


Hawthorne, CA - After making the historic journey as the first commercial spacecraft to visit the International Space Station, SpaceX's Dragon spacecraft will return to Earth tomorrow.

The return is by no means an easy operation. In fact, today, Dragon is the only spacecraft capable of returning a significant amount of cargo from the space station. The other cargo vehicles serving the space station - from Russia, Japan and the European Space Agency - can carry cargo up but all are destroyed after leaving the station.

While Dragon was attached to the space station, astronauts unloaded 1,146 pounds of cargo including food, other crew provisions and student experiments. They then packed the spacecraft with 1,455 pounds of cargo that will be returned to NASA on Earth including hardware used for experiments, spacewalks and station systems.

This morning, astronauts closed the hatch on the vehicle. Early Thursday, at approximately 1:00 AM Pacific/4:00 AM Eastern, they will use the space station's robotic arm to pull the spacecraft from the station. Two hours later, the robotic arm will release Dragon and the spacecraft will begin its journey home.

Dragon is targeted to land in the Pacific Ocean, a few hundred miles west of Southern California, at approximately 8:44 AM Pacific/11:44 AM Eastern on Thursday, May 31st. The spacecraft returns to Earth like a burning comet, protected from extreme reentry temperatures by its powerful PICA-X heat shield. The landing location is controlled by firing the Draco thrusters during reentry.




按照时间表，美国东部时间4:00（北京时间17:00）左右开始脱离。美国东部时间11：44（北京时间1号凌晨0:44）左右降落太平洋。