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Old May 30th 12, 11:40 PM posted to sci.space.station
snidely
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Default Loiter time on orbit of Dragon

Jeff Findley explained on 5/30/2012 :
In article , says...

"Brian Gaff" writes:

I see they are bringing Dragon down quite quickly compared to other cargo
delivery craft, and I wondered if this was just due to it being an early
test flight, or whether there is an issue over prolonged time on orbit.


Sane thing to do with a craft that never was in orbit for longer than a
few hours before. Dragon has lots of hypergolic fuels on board, lots of
valves and plumbing... You certainly don't want it do develop a leak
somewhere or a connector corroding while docked to the ISS.

Getting it down as soon as it has done its job at the ISS and going over it
with a fine comb afterwards is just sensible I'd say.


Agreed. It's still a very early test flight by a company that many see
as inexperienced. Best to bring it back soon to minimize the chance of
failure and maintain the forward momentum of the program. Later flights
can expand the flight envelope.


Recall that because of the maneuvers in the "distant proximity" phase
of the tests, fuel on this flight is already constrained (hence the
tight launch window). Loitering in free flight may use up too much of
the reserves.

/dps


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