NASA astronauts Robert Behnken and Douglas Hurley are set to return home from the International Space Station aboard their SpaceX Crew Dragon capsule. Follow live updates:
The Crew Dragon will ignite its thruster engines as it slices back into the thickest part of Earth's atmosphere while traveling at. Rapid air compression and air friction will heat the outside of the spacecraft to aboutFahrenheit — a dangerous part of the journey. But a heat shield on Crew Dragon's exterior will keep Behnken and Hurley safe inside."You actually see the light from the atmosphere as it heats up the external portions of the spacecraft.
In some ways, however, the ride home on Crew Dragon will be much different from what the astronauts experienced during their prior Space Shuttle missions. The G-forces will be much more intense but won't last quite as long. "The capsule comes in steeper and [will] decelerate much more rapidly," according to former NASA astronaut Garret Reisman, who helped SpaceX develop Crew Dragon.
As the Crew Dragon approaches Earth, it'll deploy a set of parachutes, called"drogue parachutes," to begin slowing its descent before a large plume of four parachutes fans out to slow the vehicle down even further. If all goes well, Crew Dragon will be traveling less than 20 miles per hour when it hits the water.
Reisman said that after getting used to the microgravity environment in space then experiencing the intense G-forces of the return flight, it takes awhile to readjust, he told CNN Business.share with Facebook
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