SpaceX CRS-15 Dragon - RNDZ, ISS Ops, EOM - UPDATES

[cscott]

Back vs front.  The dragon gets toasted much more on one side ("down") than the other ("up").

[woods170]

Back vs front.  The dragon gets toasted much more on one side ("down") than the other ("up").

More specifically: the side getting toasted is the side opposite the (side-)hatch.

[Semmel]

Back vs front.  The dragon gets toasted much more on one side ("down") than the other ("up").

More specifically: the side getting toasted is the side opposite the (side-)hatch.

Out of curiosity, is the blackening due to reentry heat or is it deposit ablative heat shield material?

[woods170]

Back vs front.  The dragon gets toasted much more on one side ("down") than the other ("up").

More specifically: the side getting toasted is the side opposite the (side-)hatch.

Out of curiosity, is the blackening due to reentry heat or is it deposit ablative heat shield material?

Deposit of ablative heat shield material mostly. But the deposit "burns" into the SPAM (backshell TPS material) somewhat. A pressure wash only partially removes the deposit.
The SPAM itself only turns slightly yellowish/brownish during reentry.

[kdhilliard]

From: NASA’s Management of Crew Transportation to the International Space Station
(NASA Office of Inspector General · November 14, 2019)

In August 2018, SpaceX experienced failures on two main parachute canopies during the return of its Dragon capsule from a cargo resupply mission to the ISS.  This resulted in additional work to improve load balancing on the planned crewed parachute system.  However, the parachute design for SpaceX cargo missions uses three instead of four parachutes and receives more turbulence from the cargo capsule compared to a crew capsule and therefore they are not suitable for direct comparison to one another.

Please pardon the bump, but if we have any more information about these CRS-15 parachute failures, it should be linked from this thread.