Live NASA TV Coverage of SpaceX Dragon Departure is Underway

NASA Television coverage is underway for departure of the SpaceX Dragon spacecraft from the International Space Station. The spacecraft is scheduled for release at 9:05 a.m. EDT.

Dragon was detached robotically from the Earth-facing port of the Harmony module earlier today after flight controllers at mission control in Houston delivered remote commands to the station’s Canadarm2 robotic arm. Expedition 62 Flight Engineer Andrew Morgan of NASA backed up the operation and will monitor Dragon’s systems as it departs the orbital laboratory.

After firing its thrusters to move a safe distance away from the station, Dragon will execute a deorbit burn to leave orbit, as it heads for a parachute-assisted splashdown in the Pacific Ocean, 300 miles southwest of Long Beach, California, at about 2:50 p.m. (11:50 a.m. PDT). There will be no live coverage of deorbit burn or splashdown.

Dragon launched on the SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket March 6 from Space Launch Complex 40 at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida, and arrived at the station three days later with science, supplies and cargo on SpaceX’s 20th commercial resupply mission to the station for NASA.

Learn more about station activities by following the space station blog, @space_station and @ISS_Research on Twitter as well as the ISS Facebook and ISS Instagram accounts.