ESA shares pictures of SpaceX Dragon capsule before and after brutal atmospheric re-entry

SpaceX's Dragon capsule splashed down in the Atlantic ocean with four astronauts on May 6, and like every other spacecraft, it went through the unforgiving atmospheric re-entry. It is the phase, which is one of the most challenging phases of spaceflight as any miscalculation can be catastrophic. The European Space Agency (ESA) has shared a picture of the spacecraft named 'Endeavour' which endured the brutal re-entry conditions and burnt up completely in the process. 

(The Endeavour capsule being recovered after splashdown; Image; ESA)

The picture above was taken when the spacecraft was being recovered after splashing down off the coast of Florida with astronauts of the Crew-3 mission. Crew-3 was the third human spaceflight mission to the International Space Station (ISS), wherein three NASA and one ESA astronaut visited space for a six-month-long mission starting November 2021. As you can see, the spacecraft's base got charred with the atmospheric burn after it was engulfed in flames that reached past the windows of the capsule. 

(The Endurance capsule docked outside the space station; Image: Twitter/@astro_matthias)

What happens during a re-entry?

When a spacecraft is re-entering the Earth's atmosphere, the air particles around it get disturbed and produce an electrically charged plasma around the spacecraft. NASA says that this plasma production occurs because the temperature around the space capsule turns extremely intense which results in the generation of strong shock waves on the capsule's lower portion. Notably, the speed of a descending spacecraft through the atmosphere gets as high as over 28,000 kmph, which is many times greater than the speed of sound. 

In order to get rid of the intense heating problem, space capsules are generally equipped with a cooling system whereas the extreme descent speed is controlled using massive parachutes. In multiple videos shared by SpaceX, the Endurance spacecraft can be seen approaching the Atlantic waters through a parachute-assisted descent. The reason for space agencies to be much more careful during re-entry is the Columbia disaster of 2003 which killed seven NASA astronauts, including India's Kalpana Chawla, during re-entry.

The Crew-3 team consisted of three NASA astronauts- Raja Chari, Kayla Barron and Thomas Mashburn along with ESA astronaut Matthias Maurer. The team spent six months aboard the ISS and was recently replaced by Crew-4 astronauts that arrived at the space station on April 28.

Image: ESA