The waterproofing burns off during the shuttle's fiery re-entry into Earth's atmosphere, leaving the tile-encrusted spacecraft vulnerable to the elements after landing.
Late Friday, NASA put out a statement indicating that the satellite's orbit was taking it as close as 90 miles to the Earth and re-entry was expected around midnight or early Saturday Eastern Daylight Time.
The unmanned Dragon spacecraft cast off from the International Space Station early Thursday morning and survived a fiery re-entry through Earth's atmosphere to make an apparently flawless splashdown in the Pacific Ocean off the coast of Baja California.
But the pictures are being examined by engineers back at mission control to ensure there is no damage that could jeopardise the shuttle's re-entry through the Earth's atmosphere.
Most of the 20-year-old satellite should simply have burnt up on re-entry into the Earth's atmosphere, but modelling work indicated perhaps 500kg could have survived to the surface.
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