Targeting 8:30 pm E.T. from LC-39A at the Kennedy Space Center

Tomorrow, NASA, and SpaceX are planning to launch the next in their series of Commercial Resupply Services mission. This mission, the twenty-seventh for NASA while using a SpaceX Dragon cargo capsule will launch atop a Falcon 9 rocket on Tuesday March 14, at 8:30 pm E.T. and will arrive at the ISS (International Space Station) around 7:07 am E.T. on Thursday March 16.

Taking flight less than two weeks after the latest Crewed mission, and just days after the return of the four Crew-5 astronauts, you may be asking how SpaceX has enough Dragon Capsules for so much action. This however is easy, as SpaceX has two variants of Dragons. One variant for carrying crew, and the other which is only used as a freighter to bring supplies to and from the space station. They are both similar in the manner of which they can survive reentry into Earth’s atmosphere, something no other cargo capsule currently has the ability to do. This makes it easier for hauling scientific research and experiments, and other gear back to Earth where it can be quickly delivered to laboratories for further study.

Carrying a variety of supplies, scientific research, and space station hardware for the ISS and crew onboard, CRS-27 will deliver the load and stay docked to the station for about one month before undocking and returning home, splashing down off the Florida coast. Among the research is a student built project that could make it easier to film things in space and a Japanese study called Tanpop-5 which will study the origin, transportation, and survival of life in space on extraterrestrial planets. This mission will also deliver the final two experiments from the National Institutes for Health and International Space Station National Laboratory’s Tissue Chips in Space initiative. Both studies contain engineered heart tissue and use small devices that contain living cells which mimic functions of human tissue and organs in hopes to advance the development of treatments for cardiac dysfunction back on Earth and possibly in long duration deep space missions in the future.