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SpaceX CRS-16, also known as SpX-16, was a Commercial Resupply Service mission to the
International Space Station The International Space Station (ISS) is the largest Modular design, modular space station currently in low Earth orbit. It is a multinational collaborative project involving five participating space agencies: NASA (United States), Roscosmos ( ...
launched on 5 December 2018 aboard a
Falcon 9 Falcon 9 is a partially reusable medium lift launch vehicle that can carry cargo and crew into Earth orbit, produced by American aerospace company SpaceX. The rocket has two stages. The first (booster) stage carries the second stage and pa ...
launch vehicle. The mission was contracted by
NASA The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA ) is an independent agency of the US federal government responsible for the civil space program, aeronautics research, and space research. NASA was established in 1958, succeedi ...
and is flown by
SpaceX Space Exploration Technologies Corp. (SpaceX) is an American spacecraft manufacturer, launcher, and a satellite communications corporation headquartered in Hawthorne, California. It was founded in 2002 by Elon Musk with the stated goal of ...
. This CRS mission is the first with the
Falcon 9 Block 5 Falcon 9 Block 5 is a partially reusable two-stage-to-orbit medium-lift launch vehicle designed and manufactured in the United States by SpaceX. It is the fifth version of Falcon 9 Full Thrust, powered by SpaceX Merlin engines burning rocket-g ...
. It carried the Global Ecosystem Dynamics Investigation (GEDI) lidar and the Robotic Refueling Mission 3 (RRM3) experiment as external payloads.


Launch

In February 2016, it was announced that
NASA The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA ) is an independent agency of the US federal government responsible for the civil space program, aeronautics research, and space research. NASA was established in 1958, succeedi ...
had awarded a contract extension to SpaceX for five additional CRS missions (CRS-16 to CRS-20). , a NASA
Inspector General An inspector general is an investigative official in a civil or military organization. The plural of the term is "inspectors general". Australia The Inspector-General of Intelligence and Security (Australia) (IGIS) is an independent statutory o ...
report had this mission manifested for August 2018, but it was later delayed to 29 November 2018, 4 December 2018, and 5 December 2018. The first stage booster B1050.1 experienced a grid fin hydraulic pump stall on re-entry. This caused the first stage to go into a roll after the re-entry burn. It failed to reach
Landing Zone 1 Landing Zone 1 and Landing Zone 2, also known as LZ-1 and LZ-2 respectively, are landing facilities on Cape Canaveral Space Force Station for recovering components of SpaceX's VTVL reusable launch vehicles. LZ-1 and LZ-2 were built on land l ...
, but recovered enough to achieve a water landing off Cape Canaveral. Shortly after the landing,
Elon Musk Elon Reeve Musk ( ; born June 28, 1971) is a business magnate and investor. He is the founder, CEO and chief engineer of SpaceX; angel investor, CEO and product architect of Tesla, Inc.; owner and CEO of Twitter, Inc.; founder of The ...
, CEO of SpaceX, stated the booster appeared undamaged and was being recovered. After recovering the booster, it was found to be too damaged to fly again and was scrapped for parts. On 13 January 2019, Dragon was released from ISS at 23:33 UTC and deorbited, splashing down in the Pacific Ocean approximately 5 hours later on 14 January 2019 at 05:10 UTC, returning more than of cargo to
Earth Earth is the third planet from the Sun and the only astronomical object known to harbor life. While large volumes of water can be found throughout the Solar System, only Earth sustains liquid surface water. About 71% of Earth's surf ...
.


Payload

NASA has contracted for the CRS-16 mission from SpaceX and therefore determines the primary payload, date/time of launch, and orbital parameters for the Dragon
space capsule A space capsule is an often-crewed spacecraft that uses a blunt-body reentry capsule to reenter the Earth's atmosphere without wings. Capsules are distinguished from other satellites primarily by the ability to survive reentry and return a paylo ...
. CRS-16 carried a total of of material into orbit. This included of pressurised cargo with packaging bound for the International Space Station, and of unpressurised cargo composed of two external station experiments: the Global Ecosystem Dynamics Investigation (GEDI) lidar and the Robotic Refueling Mission 3. Forty mice also flew with the payload in an experiment called Rodent Research-8 (RR-8). The CRS-16 mission also carried a pair of
CubeSat A CubeSat is a class of miniaturized satellite based around a form factor consisting of cubes. CubeSats have a mass of no more than per unit, and often use commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) components for their electronics and structure. CubeSat ...
s originally planned to launch aboard the
International Space Station The International Space Station (ISS) is the largest Modular design, modular space station currently in low Earth orbit. It is a multinational collaborative project involving five participating space agencies: NASA (United States), Roscosmos ( ...
(ISS) cargo resupply mission, but which were deferred. These included the UNITE CubeSat from the
University of Southern Indiana The University of Southern Indiana (USI) is a public university just outside of Evansville, Indiana. Founded in 1965, USI enrolls 9,750 dual credit, undergraduate, graduate and doctoral students in more than 130 areas of study. USI offers program ...
and the TechEdSat-8 CubeSat from NASA's
Ames Research Center The Ames Research Center (ARC), also known as NASA Ames, is a major NASA research center at Moffett Federal Airfield in California's Silicon Valley. It was founded in 1939 as the second National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA) labora ...
. The following is a breakdown of cargo bound for the ISS: * Crew supplies: * Science investigations: ** Rodent Research-8 (RR-8) ** Molecular Muscle Experiment (MME) ** Growth of Large, Perfect Protein Crystals for Neutron Crystallography (Perfect Crystals) * Spacewalk equipment: * Vehicle hardware: * Computer resources: * Russian hardware: * External payloads: ** Global Ecosystem Dynamics Investigation (GEDI): ≈ ** Robotic Refueling Mission 3 (RRM3)


See also

* Uncrewed spaceflights to the International Space Station


References


External links


Dragon website
at SpaceX.com
Commercial Resupply Services
at NASA.gov {{DEFAULTSORT:CRS 016 SpaceX Dragon Spacecraft launched in 2018 SpaceX payloads contracted by NASA Supply vehicles for the International Space Station Spacecraft which reentered in 2019