In early 2015, NASA awarded a contract extension to SpaceX for three additional CRS missions (
CRS-13 to CRS-15).[4] In June 2016, a NASA Inspector General report had this mission manifested for April 2018,[5] but this was pushed back, first to 6 June, to 9 June, to 28 June and finally to 29 June 2018.[6]
The mission launched on 29 June 2018 at 09:42
UTC aboard a Falcon 9 rocket from
Cape Canaveral Air Force StationLaunch Complex 40.[1] The
SpaceX Dragon spacecraft rendezvoused with the International Space Station on 2 July 2018. It was captured by the
Canadarm2 at 10:54 UTC and was berthed to the Harmony node at 13:50 UTC.[3] On 3 August 2018, Dragon was released from ISS at 16:38 UTC and deorbited, splashing down in the Pacific Ocean approximately 5 hours later at 22:17 UTC, returning more than 1,700 kg (3,748 lb) of cargo to Earth.[2]
It is reported that the Dragon spacecraft may have experienced some parachute anomaly during its flight to the ISS, but it did not prevent the capsule from successful splashdown.[7]
Payload
NASA contracted for the CRS-15 mission from SpaceX and therefore determined the primary payload, date/time of launch, and
orbital parameters for the
Dragonspace capsule. According to a NASA mission overview, CRS-15 carried a total of 2,697 kg (5,946 lb) of total cargo, divided between 1,712 kg (3,774 lb) of pressurized material and 985 kg (2,172 lb) of unpressurized cargo.[8] The external payloads manifested for this flight were
ECOSTRESS[9][10] and a
Latching End Effector for
Canadarm2.[8]CubeSats included on this flight were three Biarri-Squad satellites built by Boeing for a multinational partnership led by the U.S. National Reconnaissance Office, and three satellites making up the Japanese-sponsored
Birds-2 program: BHUTAN-1 from Bhutan, Maya-1 from the Philippines, and UiTMSAT-1 from Malaysia.[11] Furthermore, it contained an interactive artwork by artist
Nahum entitled The Contour of Presence, a collaboration with the
International Space University, Space Application Services and the
European Space Agency.[12]
The following is a breakdown of cargo bound for the ISS:[8]
Launches are separated by dots ( • ), payloads by commas ( , ), multiple names for the same satellite by slashes ( / ).
CubeSats are smaller. Crewed flights are underlined. Launch failures are marked with the † sign. Payloads deployed from other spacecraft are (enclosed in parentheses).