SpaceX’s Crew Dragon Becomes ‘Shooting Star’ During Fiery Atmospheric Re-entry

NASA, JAXA and Roscosmos' Crew-5 crew splashed down safely in Florida earlier today after spending more than five months in space at the International Space Station (ISS). The astronauts flew to the space station on SpaceX's Crew Dragon spacecraft atop the Falcon 9 rocket in October last year. Their return marks the completion of the sixth SpaceX crewed mission to the ISS on the Dragon. The crew, comprised of two NASA astronauts and one each from the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) and Roscosmos, comprised mostly of first-time astronauts, with only JAXA's Koichi Wakada marking his fifth spaceflight.

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Yesterday's landing occurred at night, providing colorful visuals of the Crew Dragons spacecraft as it returned home. As part of the return journey, the spaceship must undergo several checkout procedures and burns to ensure that it is on the right trajectory and configured to safely enter the atmosphere at blistering temperatures.

After separating from the ISS yesterday, the second leg of Dragon's journey started with its deorbit burn at 5:11 pm pacific time. This burn uses the Draco engines at the top (forward end) of the spacecraft to reduce its altitude for reentry. Before the burn, the Dragon's trunk separated from the spacecraft to expose its heat shield to the Earth's atmosphere, and its coolant system configured itself to keep up with the extreme temperatures of the next phase of the journey.

Dragon's primary landing site was Florida, with NASA and SpaceX marking Daytona as an alternative landing zone. The spacecraft can return to Earth as soon as six hours or as late as 39 hours, depending on the trajectory, with today's journey taking 19 hours from undocking to landing. Once the deorbit burn finished, the spacecraft's nose cone closed to protect the Dragon engines and give the ship a stable aerodynamic profile. Immediately after this, the astronauts' custom-made space suits were injected with cold nitrogen and oxygen (called a purge) to keep them cool for the next leg of the journey, after Dragon's atmospheric entry began at 5 pm pacific time.

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Following the deorbit burn, the toughest part of the journey started, as the exterior of the Dragon heated up to 3,500 degrees Fahrenheit. During this time, the ground controllers lost communications to the spacecraft in a planned and unavoidable occurrence that started at 5:48 pm pacific time and lasted for less than seven minutes. Dragon's drogue, or secondary parachutes, deployed at 18,000 feet at 5:58 pacific time while the ship traveled 350 miles per hour. Before their deployment, the ship's propulsion system entered into a safe configuration.

After they slowed the ship to 119 miles per hour, the primary parachutes deployed at 6,500 feet. This part of the journey also saw astronauts experience loads up to five times the pull of gravity or 5g, and the main parachutes are designed to open slowly to reduce the load on the crew.

The night landing of the spacecraft saw the Dragon's green beacon light clearly visible across the night sky, with the ship itself illuminated by the blue spotlights of the recovery ships. A NASA communications team member on SpaceX's recovery vessel, Shannon, explained that most of the stars in the sky were visible in the Gulf of Mexico at night.

NASA's public affairs specialist, Chelsea Ballarte, explained the recovery process:

As the Crew Dragon came down, we went to the tip top of this boat on the helicopter pad to get a view. The boat lights turned completely off, you could see every star in the sky, that's how dark it was. And all of a sudden you see the brightest shooting star you ever saw in your life pointing down at Earth. And I was amazed how quickly after those parachutes deployed, the shooting star went away, and it just became another dot in the sky among a sea of stars.

Splashdown occurred at 6:02 pm pacific time, marking the completion of the crew's 157-day mission in space. Sea crews then approached the spacecraft and used sniffing devices to ensure that no toxic chemicals from the Dragon's thrusters were present on the spacecraft since these are toxic to breathe. Before the crew's exit, the Dragon equalizes the pressure inside and outside the spacecraft, and all crew successfully exited the spacecraft with help from the recovery team for routine medical checks.

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