SpaceX to adjust spacecraft landings to prevent debris from falling over populated areas

SpaceX Crew-2 return to Earth, Crew-3 set to launch Wednesday night

NASA's SpaceX Crew-2 returned to Earth, splashing down off the coast of Pensacola, Florida Monday night. While Crew-3 is still set to launch Wednesday night around 9 p.m. 

HOUSTON – NASA and SpaceX believe that they have come up with a solution to limit the threat of debris from impacting the world’s landmasses during the return of crewed missions.

SpaceX announced Friday, during an hour-long news conference, that it plans to move Dragon spacecraft recovery operations based along the East Coast to the Pacific, with the hopes that the changed landing trajectory will keep potential spacecraft debris over the ocean.

NASA previously said it is aware of at least five instances where debris that was designed to disintegrate in the atmosphere made it to Earth’s surface during crewed missions. 

Fortunately, none of these events resulted in injuries or significant property damage but did make for eye-opening spectacles.

One of the most recent debris strikes occurred on a private mountaintop outside Asheville, North Carolina, in May, where groundkeepers stumbled upon a section of a trunk from a Dragon spacecraft.

NASA, SPACEX WORKING TO MITIGATE HAZARDS POSED BY SPACE DEBRIS

"So, to make this change possible, we’ll move a dragon recovery vessel to the Pacific sometime next year. And we’ll use SpaceX facilities in the Port of Long Beach for our initial post-flight processing," said Sarah Walker, SpaceX’s director of Dragon mission management.

Aside from limiting debris impacts, Walker said weather conditions in the eastern Pacific are generally more favorable for landings than in the Gulf of Mexico or the western Atlantic.

The waters off California and northwest Mexico tend to experience fewer hurricanes and reduced wave heights, which increases the chances of favorable return weather.

The change in landing sites from off of the Sunshine State to the western coast of North America is not expected to impact launches, which will remain based in Florida.

When asked if launching from the East Coast and landing off the West Coast will impact overall operations, SpaceX acknowledged that it will be a factor they closely monitor.

"When we were developing our new concept of operations, NASA gave us new requirements starting with CRS-21 for even tighter return timelines, enhanced science capability. And that was all factored in when we were designing and building, the whole system in Florida. And so that’s the new challenge ahead of us now and what we’ve been working through," Walker stated.

The Elon Musk-owned company stated that post-splashdown refurbishments will continue to take place at its processing facility at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida, to ensure vehicles are ready to be reused for future missions.

At 12:40 p.m. EST, Dec. 11, 2022, NASA’s Orion spacecraft for the Artemis I mission splashed down in the Pacific Ocean after a 25.5 day mission to the Moon. Orion will be recovered by NASA’s Landing and Recovery team, U.S. Navy and Department of Defense partners aboard the USS Portland. (Image: NASA)

(NASA)

PIECE OF SUSPECTED SPACE DEBRIS FOUND IN RURAL NORTH CAROLINA

NASA lays out timeline for Crew-9 lift-off

During the news conference, NASA also announced that it is targeting a date no earlier than August 18 for the launch of three astronauts and a Russian cosmonaut to the International Space Station. 

Crew-9 is expected to lift off from Kennedy Space Center aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket, which has just been cleared to fly again following an investigation by the Federal Aviation Administration.

A series of Starlink satellites failed to deploy properly on July 11 during an uncrewed mission, prompting the FAA to ensure the space vehicle was safe for flight. 

The private space company stated that the failure was due to a crack in a pressure sensor line, which has been removed until a longer-term fix is developed.

NASA astronauts Zena Cardman, Nick Hague, Stephanie Wilson, as well as Roscosmos cosmonaut Alexander Gorbunov

NASA representatives also noted that a Crew-10 mission is planned for February and that the Starliner-1 mission has been delayed to at least August 2025 to give ground crews time to make modifications after the current test mission is complete.

Astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams launched from Florida’s Space Coast on June 5 on what was intended to be an eight-day mission but are still on the ISS. 

NASA said that engineers are examining data from malfunctioning thrusters, which they want to fully understand before attempting a landing in the Desert Southwest.

Officials maintain that it is their intent to return Wilmore and Williams to Earth aboard the Starliner spacecraft to learn as much as possible about how the vehicle handles reentry.

The Starliner spacecraft on NASA’s Boeing Crew Flight Test is pictured docked to the Harmony module’s forward port as the International Space Station orbited 262 miles above Egypt’s Mediterranean coast.

(NASA)