Continuing their recent tradition of doing spectacular things on weekends, on Saturday, August 1, the SpaceX Dragon Crew Capsule Endeavor undocked from the International Space Station and began the slow process of changing its orbit to return to Earth with NASA astronauts Bob Behnken and Doug Hurley and the famous stuffed dinosaur, Tremor. Re-entry began Sunday morning and included an 11-minute entry burn at 17:56 UTC or about 1 pm Eastern. This long burn led to a precise landing in the still waters of the Gulf of Mexico. 

This landing took place in international waters near Pensacola at 18:48 UTC, or 2:48 pm Eastern, and was the first US water landing since 1975. This capsule’s total mission lasted 63 days, 23 hours, and 25 minutes, and it was flawless almost to the end. The one thing NASA and SpaceX need to figure out how to fix was something not entirely related to the spacecraft.

After landing, the capsule was swarmed by dozens of spectator boats. One particular boat, flying a Trump flag, planted itself between the capsule and SpaceX’s Go Navigator boat, that was trying to reach the capsule to retrieve it. This boat actually blocked Go Navigator’s view of the capsule! All these boats were a hazard on many levels, the least obvious being that the capsule may have had toxic gases still venting that could have affected the health of anyone who got too close. Luckily, there were no accidents, no reported health issues, and the SpaceX radio operator and high-speed boats were able to herd the spectators back to a safer distance. 

Both NASA and SpaceX have said they will work to figure out how to prevent this kind of confusion from happening again. Since the landings are in international waters, the Coast Guard can’t establish an official safety zone. At this point, beyond not advertising the landing location, we’re not sure what they can change, but when we learn more we’ll share it with you here on the Daily Space.

Oh, and the Dragon Crew Capsule brought its space toilet all the way back to Earth. No toilets were harmed in this re-entry.

And finally, while it didn’t go to orbit, or even to the edge of space like a sounding rocket, it’s still pretty impressive.

I am, of course, talking about SpaceX’s Starship SN-5.

After a couple of scrubs, including a really exciting rapid propellant offload earlier in the day, this glorified grain silo made a 150-meter hop in Boca Chica, Texas, yesterday afternoon just before 6 pm Mountain Daylight Time (just before midnight GMT).

More Information

• NASA press release 

Starship SN5 conducts successful 150-meter flight test

• NASASpaceflight.com story 
• Teslarati story