SpaceX launch sends space plant babies, ‘blue jet’ lightning research to space station
(TNS) — After a series of weather delays, SpaceX managed to send up a resupply mission to the International Space Station just before noon Monday.
A Falcon 9 rocket blasted off from Kennedy Space Center’s Launch Pad 39-A at 11:47 a.m. on the CRS-28 mission with a cargo Dragon spacecraft carrying nearly 7,000 pounds of supplies and science experiments.
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The first-stage booster made its fifth flight with SpaceX once again recovering it downrange on its droneship A Shortfall of Gravitas in the Atlantic. The cargo Dragon is making its fourth trip to space, and is expected to dock early Tuesday morning with the ISS.
A big chunk of the weight flying in Dragon comes from the last pair of six new ISS Roll Out Solar Arrays, or iROSAs, that will be installed during a pair of spacewalks later this month.
The $103 million replacements for the station’s existing arrays that have been used since 2000 will supply 30% more power and help ensure the station can be operational through NASA’s planned 2030 retirement.
Also headed up is more food for the seven crew members on board including fresh apples, blueberries, grapefruit, oranges, cheese and tomatoes.
The benefits could involve how to grow plants for multiple generations in space, but could also be used to help adapt plant life in challenging habitats on Earth, he said.
Another investigation run by the European Space Agency is called Thor-Davis, which will observe thunderstorms from the ISS.
“Thor Davis is looking for upward-directed lightning events over the tops of thunderclouds,” Kirt Costello, chief scientist for the International Space Station Program Research Office, said.
“So the ISS is a perfect vantage point for these kinds of observations. They’ll be using an electronic combination with a camera from a nadir window to capture what are known as blue jet and other lightning phenomenon.”
