CRS-31 is returning to Earth with thousands of pounds of equipment and experiment specimens from ongoing microgravity research aboard the space station. Dragon is currently the only ISS cargo spacecraft capable of returning equipment and experiments safely to Earth. The other two operational freighters — Northrop Grumman's Cygnus spacecraft and Russia's Progress capsule — face a fiery atmospheric incineration, burning up during reentry, along with whatever waste from the space station is packed aboard them.
The CRS-31 Dragon launched to the ISS from NASA's Kennedy Space Center (KSC) in Florida on Nov. 4, riding a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket to low Earth orbit. The spacecraft rendezvoused with the orbital laboratory a day later, delivering about 6,000 pounds (2,700 kilograms) of science and supplies for the Expedition 71 astronauts aboard.
Among those astronauts are NASA's Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams, who originally launched to the station on the first crewed flight of Boeing's Starliner spacecraft in June. Complications with Starliner turned an eight-day mission into an eight-month stint aboard the ISS for the two astronauts. NASA eventually decided to return Starliner to Earth uncrewed; Wilmore and Williams will come home in February on SpaceX's Crew-9 mission, which arrived at the station in September.
At the time of Starliner's launch, the ISS was in need of a pump replacement for its urine processing system, which Wilmore and Williams were tasked with delivering. To make room aboard the spacecraft, however, the two astronauts were forced to leave their own luggage behind, including their change of clothes and other personal items.
Source: www.space.com
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