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Dragon reuse
This article says that NASA has contracted for new Dragon's on each ISS flight. Because of this, SpaceX is planning to reuse them for other commercial missions. http://www.spacepolicyonline.com/new...-continue-for- dragon-return-to-earth-on-may-31-update-2 From above: This Dragon spacecraft will not be reused, Couluris said. NASA has contracted for new Dragon spacecraft for each of its missions, he said, although Dragons are reusable. This particular spacecraft "definitely" will be put on display for historical purposes, but other Dragon spacecraft could be refurbished and reflown for other customers. One version, DragonLab, is capable of two years of autonomous operations in orbit, he added. I see that they anticipate that Dragon could stay in orbit for two years. That would be impressive and would essentially make DragonLab a mini-space station. Back in the Space Station Freedom days, there were notional designs for "free flyers" which would detach from the station and fly in close formation. The reason for this was to provide better microgravity conditions for experiments. Dragonlab would seem to provide very nearly the same capability that the old "free flyer" concept would have provided. Jeff -- " Ares 1 is a prime example of the fact that NASA just can't get it up anymore... and when they can, it doesn't stay up long. " - tinker |
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