WASHINGTON — SpaceX will move Dragon spacecraft splashdowns from off the coast of Florida to the West Coast starting in 2025, a move the company says is intended to reduce risks from reentering debris from the spacecraft’s trunk section.
In a July 26 statement, SpaceX announced that it would shift the splashdown locations for Dragon spacecraft to locations off the California coast as part of measures to control where the trunk section reenters after being jettisoned from the Dragon capsule.
Since the introduction of the Crew Dragon spacecraft and its cargo variant, the trunk section has been released before the deorbit burn, reentering passively weeks to months later. SpaceX said it chose this option after the company, working with NASA, used “industry-standard models” that predicted that the trunk would break up completely on reentry, with no debris surviving.
That has not been the case. On several occasions sizable pieces of debris from Dragon trunks have survived reentry and landed in Australia, Saskatchewan and North Carolina, among other places. The debris falls caused no damage or injuries but illustrated the risk the posed.
Earlier this year, Steve Stich, NASA commercial crew program manager, said the agency was working with SpaceX on ways to better control the debris created by reentering trunks. One option being studied, he said then, would be to jettison the trunk after Dragon performs its deorbit burn, which would allow the trunk to reenter around the same time along the reentry corridor for the capsule.
SpaceX said that is the approach that the company is taking. “SpaceX will implement a software change that will have Dragon execute its deorbit burn before jettisoning the trunk, similar to our first 21 Dragon recoveries,” it stated. It ruled out alternatives that included a complete redesign of the trunk or addition of a propulsion system to it for a controlled reentry.
That will require a…
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