Was I the only person who read the headline and thought "Wait, was it meant to?". The word "falls" has very negative connotations and could have been chosen better surely? :-)
"The firm has a $1.6bn (£1bn; 1.3bn-euro) contract with the US space agency (Nasa) waiting to be triggered on the successful recovery of Dragon from the ocean."<p>So.. no pressure or anything.
Expected timetable as best as I can work it out:<p>* 13:00 UTC, 08:00 CT, update from NASA<p>* 14:15 UTC, 09:15 CT, Coverage restarts on NASA TV<p>* 14:51 UTC, 09:51 CT, De-orbit burn<p>* 15:09 UTC, 10:09 CT, Dragon's trunk is jettisoned<p>* 15:35 UTC, 10:35 CT, Drogue chutes deployment<p>* 15:36 UTC, 10:36 CT, Main chute deployment<p>* 15:44 UTC, 10:44 CT, Splashdown
Dragon has unberthed, has been released from the ISS's robotic arm, and has completed its final separation burn . Remaining tasks: deorbit burn, separation from the trunk, reentry, and recovery.
As watching the mission control center of SpaceX: where are the computers? Are they running thin clients? I just see a lot of monitors and 1 or 2 two laptops but no actual PCs.
> "<i>Scientists say that the vessel will splashdown in the Pacific Ocean several hours later in what they are describing as “a very challenging phase of the flight”."</i><p>Impressed how space junk etc fall to Earth and almost always land in the ocean. Not hard when 70% of the Earth surface is covered by water. However what is the level of accuracy? I assume that it is planned to aim for a large body of water and get within an x% threshold?