West Coast Off Long Beach New Destination

SpaceX has decided to reprogram the Dragon landings to splash down in the Pacific Ocean off Long Beach, California.

The company explained the move is due to concerns over the module’s trunk section shedding debris during reentry.

The trunk is the section that supports the crew’s spacecraft module and carries unpressurized cargo and supplies during ascent. It also has solar panels for power and remains attached to the spacecraft until just before reentry when it is released and allowed to “passively deorbit,” the technical term for letting it fall to Earth under the pull of gravity.

Industry-standard engineering models of materials breakups in the atmosphere were used during the development of orbital and reentry plans for Dragon. The models predicted that the trunk would break apart and completely burn up due to the high temperatures created by air resistance during high-speed reentry. However, during NASA’s Crew-1 mission, some trunk debris was discovered in Australia, causing the teams to conclude that the models weren’t completely accurate. After reviewing the models, the existing data, and data from subsequent materials testing the decision was made to move the splashdowns to the Pacific to avoid the risk of debris shedding along the reentry path.

SpaceX plans to start moving the recovery operations and splashdowns to the Pacific next year, with the recovery vessel based at the Port of Long Beach. Which obviously pleased Long Beach Mayor Rex Richardson very much, who posted on X, formerly Twitter, “Excited to share a Space Beach update! Long Beach will be the new home to SpaceX’s Dragon recovery vessel as their West Coast Recovery Operations team based out of @portoflongbeach will welcome back both @NASA and other private astronauts who are returning to Earth from orbit and beyond.”

FMI:  www.spacex.com/