Watch SpaceX’s 31st Dragon cargo capsule head back to Earth Dec. 12 after delay (Image Credit: Space.com)
A SpaceX cargo capsule is set to head back toward Earth on Dec. 12, and you can watch the action live.
A robotic Dragon freighter will undock from the International Space Station‘s (ISS) Harmony module on Thursday, Dec. 12 at 11:05 a.m. EST (1605 GMT), if all goes according to plan. An undocking attempt set for Dec. 6 was delayed “due to forecasted unfavorable weather conditions at the splashdown site off the coast of Florida” NASA said in a statement.
NASA will stream the departure live, beginning at 10:50 a.m. EST (1550 GMT). Space.com will carry the feed as well, if the agency makes it available.
This Dragon is flying SpaceX’s 31st contracted ISS resupply mission for NASA, which explains the flight’s name: CRS-31. The capsule delivered about 6,000 pounds (2,700 kilograms) of food, equipment and scientific experiments to the station on Nov. 5.
Related: SpaceX launches 3 tons of cargo on 31st ISS resupply flight for NASA (video)
Dragon will carry cargo down from the ISS as well — “thousands of pounds of supplies and scientific experiments designed to take advantage of the space station’s microgravity environment,” NASA officials wrote in a CRS-31 undocking preview.
Dragon is the only operational ISS freighter that can do such two-way deliveries. The others — Northrop Grumman’s Cygnus spacecraft and Russia’s Progress vehicle — burn up in Earth’s atmosphere when their cargo missions are done.
The CRS-31 Dragon is expected to splash down off the coast of Florida a day after undocking, enabling “quick transportation of the experiments to NASA’s Space Systems Processing Facility at Kennedy Space Center,” as agency officials wrote in the update.
NASA will not livestream Dragon’s splashdown, but rather give updates via its ISS blog.
Editor’s note: This story was updated on Dec. 6 to reflect the CRS-31 undocking delay to Dec. 12.
