Early Tuesday morning, June 6, a SpaceX Dragon cargo capsule successfully reached the International Space Station, carrying a payload of 7,000 pounds (3,175 kilograms) comprising supplies and scientific experiments.
The uncrewed Dragon spacecraft was launched aboard SpaceX's Falcon 9 rocket from NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida at 11:47 a.m. on June 5. the US space agency confirmed that the cargo included over 7,000 pounds of research materials, hardware, and essential provisions for the space station, per the NASA official blog.
This mission, known as CRS-28, marks the 28th flight conducted by SpaceX for NASA under the Commercial Resupply Services contracts. Notably, the cargo includes two additional International Space Station Roll Out Solar Arrays (iROSAs), which will be installed by spacewalking astronauts to enhance the International Space Station's power capabilities, Space.com reported.
Scheduled for Thursday, the station's robotic arm will retrieve the two new iROSAs from the Dragon's trunk and position them near the right end of the solar power truss. During a spacewalk on Friday and another the following Thursday, astronauts Steve Bowen and Woody Hoburg will install and extend the first and second 63-foot-long blankets, respectively.
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The Purpose of The iROSAs
The International Space Station currently operates with four primary solar array wings featuring two blankets on each side of the power truss. The deployment of these iROSAs, costing $103 million, is part of NASA's strategy to counter the degradation of solar cells over time. Each 20-foot-wide roll-out blanket will be attached to an existing array, boosting the station's power generation by over 20 kilowatts, according to Spaceflight Now.
The station's updated system will produce around 215,000 watts of electricity overall, which is nearly similar to the original arrays' output when they were new, even though the IROSAs partially shade the underlying arrays from the sun.
Over 7,000 pounds of new experiments, new solar arrays, and other cargo has arrived at the station after the @SpaceX Dragon cargo craft docked to the Harmony module at 5:54am ET today. https://t.co/L1U6pEOQfX
— International Space Station (@Space_Station) June 6, 2023
Space X Dragon is scheduled to remain docked at the ISS for 21 days as part of the CRS-28 mission before returning to Earth. Its parachute-aided ocean splashdown capabilities make its safe return possible, distinguishing it from other cargo craft like Russia's Progress vehicle and Northrop Grumman's Cygnus, which burn up in Earth's atmosphere upon completing their missions.
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