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Old May 31st 12, 07:37 PM posted to sci.space.station
snidely
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Default Loiter time on orbit of Dragon

Brian Gaff presented the following explanation :
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.


And it's down (as AE noted in the STS group).

From Spaceflight Now:

quote
THURSDAY, MAY 31, 2012
1549 GMT (11:49 a.m. EDT)
SpaceX founder and chief designer Elon Musk just tweeted: "Splashdown
successful!! Sending fast boat to Dragon lat/long provided by P3
tracking planes."

The recovery team includes a 185-foot barge, an 80-foot crew boat, and
two 25-foot fast boats for dispatch to the capsule when it splashes
down.
/quote

and
quote
THURSDAY, MAY 31, 2012
1820 GMT (2:20 p.m. EDT)
Speaking with reporters from SpaceX headquarters in California, Elon
Musk says recovery crews are in the process of attaching cables to the
Dragon spacecraft to hoist it on the deck of a ship for the trip back
to port.

Dragon's re-entry and splashdown were very accurate, he said.

"It appears as though we were really hitting the bullseye in accuracy,
perhaps less than a mile," Musk said.

"In baseball terminology, this would be a grand slam," Musk said. "This
was bigger success than we had a reasonable right to expect."
/quote
(P3/submarine jokes elided)
http://spaceflightnow.com/falcon9/003/status.html

/dps

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