UAE astronaut to return home to Earth on Sept 2: How it will unfold

Eleven astronauts and cosmonauts are now living together aboard the International Space Station (ISS) before UAE’s Sultan AlNeyadi and the rest of Crew-6 return to Earth this weekend.

The newest ISS flight engineers are Crew-7 members Jasmin Moghbeli from Nasa, Andreas Mogensen from European Space Agency, Satoshi Furukawa (Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency), and Russian cosmonaut Konstantin Borisov.

While the quartet, who arrived on Sunday, are familiarising themselves with ISS safety procedures and getting used to life in microgravity, Crew-6 (AlNeyadi, Nasa astronauts Stephen Bowen and Woody Hoburg, and Roscosmos cosmonaut Andrey Fedyaev) are preparing for their journey back home no earlier than Saturday, September 2, according to Nasa.

Crew-6 docked on March 3. During their mission, they have conducted three spacewalks, including AlNeyadi’s historic spacewalk outside the ISS on April 28 this year. They also completed hundreds of experiments on plant genetics and physiology in microgravity to prepare humans for exploration beyond low Earth orbit.

Crew-6 are also currently conducting handover to Crew-7, who will also live and work 400 kilometres above the Earth for six months. On Monday, the new crew members were joined by station commander Sergey Prokopyev of Roscosmos and AlNeyadi to review the location of emergency hardware throughout the orbital laboratory.

Nasa astronaut Frank Rubio, whose stay at the ISS has been extended for another six months, checked out a Dragon pressure suit in the Endeavour spacecraft with assistance from AlNeyadi.

How AlNeyadi and company will return to Earth

The soon-to-be departing Crew-6 have already reviewed their departure activities and Dragon deorbit procedures. They will undock from ISS Harmony’s forward port aboard Endeavour on September 2 and splashdown off the coast of Florida about 24 hours later.

Splashdown is the process of landing a spacecraft by parachute in a large body of water, such as the ocean, since landing in water helps absorb some of the impact during re-entry, the capsule (Endeavour) can reach a speed of over 27,000 kilometres per hour. To safely land the crew aboard, parachutes are used to slow their descent before they officially splashdown into the ocean.

Splashdown is used by Nasa missions because of the agency’s easy access to the ocean. Returning crew of Russian and Chinese missions return over land and incorporate other safety measures, such as rocket boosters, to slow and reduce landing speeds even more.

Hazza AlMansoori, the first Emirati who went to space, returned over land aboard Russian Soyuz MS-12 space capsule that landed about 150km south-east of the Kazakh town of Dzhezkazgan on October 3, 2019.

Return sequence

The Mohammed Bin Rashid Space Centre (MBRSC) noted stringent checks will be performed, including confirming weather condition and recovery readiness at the designated splashdown location prior to the de-orbit procedure. After the verifications, the following steps will take place:

1. Departure – Dragon spacecraft Endeavour will autonomously undock from the ISS on September 2 and perform a series of departure burns to move away from the orbiting laboratory.

2. Phasing burns – If required, a series of orbit-lowering manoeuvres will be done on Endeavour to line up its ground track with the desired landing location.

3. Trunk jettison – Prior to the spacecraft’s deorbit burn, the flight computer will jettison the trunk in order to reduce mass and save propellant.

4. Deorbit burn – Firing of the spacecraft engine to enable it to re-enter Earth's atmosphere. This will last 12 minutes.

5. Re-entry – The spacecraft will experience significant heating and drag as it re-enters Earth’s atmosphere, which slows the velocity to the point of safe parachute deploy.

6. Parachute deployment – The spacecraft’s two drogue (conical) parachutes will deploy at 18,000 feet followed by four main parachutes that deploy at 6,500 feet.

7. Splashdown – Under four main parachutes, the spacecraft will safely touch down at a velocity of 25 feet per second and autonomously release its parachutes off the coast of Tampa, Florida in the Gulf of Mexico on September 3.

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