- ABC News
- May 30, 2012
AC
Click Here for Full Coverage of the SpaceX Landing. The International Space Station crew closed the hatch Wednesday on the first commercial spacecraft to visit the station, preparing for its departure early Thursday. "Only a few countries have done this before, so we're not taking this lightly at all," John Couluris, SpaceX mission manager, said of the re-entry to the Earth's atmosphere during a news briefing Wednesday morning. On Thursday, NASA astronaut Don Pettit will drive a robotic arm that pulls the unmanned Dragon from the Harmony node's Earth-facing port at 4:05 a.m. EDT. The 58-foot arm is scheduled to release the capsule at 5:35 a.m. Dragon will perform three thruster firings to move away from the station and set up a de-orbit burn at 10:51 a.m. Before re-entering the Earth's atmosphere, the spacecraft will separate from its solar arrays. The unmanned capsule aims to splash down in the Pacific Ocean hundreds of miles off the southern California coast around 11:45 a.m....