Happy Friday everyone. Mark your calendars early to come join us next Thursday, June 7th, at Hibachi Grill for our monthly Retirees Luncheon.
Don’t forget ,,,,unless you want to join in the Shuttlebration event at 2pm today near the Nassau Bay Hilton,,,,avoid the possible traffic jams in that area all the way to Seabrook.
Friday, June 1, 2012
JSC TODAY HEADLINES
1. It's a Shuttlebration! Plan Your Weekend Accordingly
2. Shuttlebration Traffic Advisories
3. Want Your Children to Have a Chance to Talk Live to the NASA NEEMO Crew?
4. Attn. Mac Users: New Software Updates Will Require Action Starting Today
5. June Roundup Articles Ripe for the Picking
6. Starport Gifts Shops Closed Today
7. ARMD Seedling Fund Virtual Technical Seminars Next Week
8. The JSC Safety Action Team (JSAT) Says …
9. Optimism & Meal Planning -- Two Ways to Bust Stress
________________________________________ QUOTE OF THE DAY
“ We must not, in trying to think about how we can make a big difference, ignore the small daily differences we can make which, over time, add up to big differences that we often cannot foresee.”
-- Marian Wright Edelman
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1. It's a Shuttlebration! Plan Your Weekend Accordingly
"Shuttlebration Weekend" will mark the arrival of the high-fidelity space shuttle currently en route to Houston. The full-scale replica departed Kennedy Space Center (KSC) on May 24 for Space Center Houston (SCH). The barge carrying the mock-up is expected to arrive today, June 1. A free, public event on the shores of Clear Lake will welcome the replica before beginning its journey down NASA Parkway to SCH. The arrival of the orbiter will also require changes to parking at JSC and road closures in the surrounding area.
Schedule of Festivities:
Friday, June 1:
2 p.m. -- Event area open to public event for viewing as the Space Shuttle replica arrives on Clear Lake
2 p.m. (until 9 p.m.) -- Free, public street party located between the JSC dock and the Houston Hilton NASA Clear Lake
3 to 5 p.m. -- Replica arrives at the JSC dock located at 3000 NASA Parkway
6:30 to 8:30 p.m. -- Entertainment provided by the MaxQ Band on the main stage
9 p.m. -- Fireworks show on Clear Lake to close the evening
Note: No pets, coolers or outside food/beverages allowed in the event area. Public parking will be provided on JSC property using Gate 3 for entrance/exit located off of Space Center Boulevard, with tram transportation to and from the event location. No public parking is available at the event.
Saturday, June 2:
All Day -- The replica will be loaded onto a mobile transfer vehicle for transport to SCH. The lakeside load-out will take a full day. There are no public events planned for this day.
Sunday, June 3:
5 to 8 a.m. -- Replica transported along NASA Parkway from JSC dock to SCH. The trek down NASA Parkway is expected to take three hours. Once at SCH, the replica will be welcomed by JSC's prototype planetary rovers for future solar system exploration, local scout troops and marching bands as it is rolled to its location.
10 a.m. to 1 p.m. -- Following the arrival, there will be a free, family-oriented public celebration in the SCH parking lot, offering viewing opportunities of the replica, NASA space exploration exhibits, fun activities for the entire family and much more.
JSC External Relations, Office of Communications and Public Affairs x35111
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2. Shuttlebration Traffic Advisories
The full-size space shuttle replica will arrive at the JSC dock on NASA Parkway and Space Center Boulevard next to the Hilton this afternoon, June 1. This requires closure of a parking lot on Fifth Street (between Buildings 28 and 35) for public parking that day. The lot will re-open Saturday morning. Public access for parking will be via Gate 3.
Additionally, there will be road closures in the surrounding area in support of the event and transporting the shuttle down NASA Parkway to its new home. Traffic congestion on NASA Parkway is expected due to lane closures, increased event traffic and spectators. Police officers and DPS will direct and monitor traffic in the area. It is advised that motorists not attending the event find an alternate route during this time. To keep traffic flowing, motorists are advised to observe and obey all traffic signs and public safety officials. Do not stop or slow down to view or take pictures of the shuttle.
Friday, June 1:
Starting at 11 a.m., two westbound right lanes of NASA Parkway will be closed between Upper Bay Road and Space Center Blvd. to allow for a bus lane to shuttle people that are parked on site back and forth from JSC to the Hilton. After event traffic has subsided, the two westbound right lanes of NASA Parkway will reopen. Additionally, the eastbound right lane of NASA Parkway will be closed from Lakeside Lane to Space Center Blvd.
The Seabrook/Kemah Bridge closure will take place sometime between 12:30 and 1:30 p.m. while the orbiter passes underneath the bridge (time subject to change). It is estimated the bridge will be closed for 30 minutes.
Saturday, June 2:
The eastbound right lane of NASA Parkway will remain closed between Lakeside Lane and Space Center Blvd. This lane will be closed to ensure the safety of NASA personnel while they prepare the shuttle for ground transport to Space Center Houston.
Sunday, June 3:
From 5 to 9 a.m., ALL east and westbound lanes on NASA Parkway between El Camino Real/Egret Bay and Space Center Blvd. will be CLOSED. The NASA 1 Bypass will be closed to all eastbound traffic during this time. Traffic from I-45 will need to find an alternate route. JSC personnel requiring access to JSC during this time should use Bay Area Blvd. to Saturn Lane to access Gate 1. Emergency vehicles will be given priority access. Proper ID will be required to enter the roadblock.
At 3 a.m. on Sunday, June 3, the traffic signals on NASA Parkway at St. John Drive, Upper Bay Road and Saturn Lane will be removed. Officers will direct traffic at each intersection during this time. Traffic signals will be immediately replaced after the shuttle has passed each intersection.
Once the shuttle has been secured and all traffic signals are properly working, NASA Parkway will reopen to motorists.
For road closure maps and more information, visit: http://www.jscsos.com
For detailed "Shuttlebration Weekend" information and traffic advisories, visit: http://www.spacecenter.org/shuttlebration.html
Lisa Gurgos x48133
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3. Want Your Children to Have a Chance to Talk Live to the NASA NEEMO Crew?
Then sign up for Bring Our Children to Work (BOCTW) Day! Registration is officially open!
To register, please send an email to jsc-edoutre@mail.nasa.gov with the following information: parent name, how many kids, age(s), work email, work phone and special assistance needed (if any). Registration will close at close of business on Tuesday, June 12.
We will be able to take the first 500 kids that sign up for the event. If we reach that goal before registration closes, you will be put on the waiting list.
Please note: The event is for kids in K-12. The event itinerary will be posted soon on the InsideJSC home page. We are still working a few more details, and then you'll have a chance to view it before the event and pick out with your child what activities interest you most.
Offsite contractor employees should contact their company representative for information regarding their company's participation in BOCTW.
Jenna Maddix and Kathy McIntyre
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4. Attn. Mac Users: New Software Updates Will Require Action Starting Today
Starting today, June 1, several software updates will be deployed to Mac computers to address security vulnerabilities that will require an action from the user of the device to successfully implement the update.
Prior to installation, you will be prompted to shut down Office applications and your Web browser. See below for more:
June 1: MS Office for Mac 2011 14.2.2: You will be notified when the installation is complete. The next launch of Outlook will prompt you to rebuild your Outlook database. Click "Rebuild" to begin.
June 1: Microsoft Office for Mac 2008 12.3: You will be notified when the installation is complete.
June 2: Apple OS X Lion Update 10.7.4: Upon receipt of this patch, a system reboot will be required. You will receive a system prompt to reboot immediately.
Note that deployment of some of these patches was delayed to perform additional testing to ensure compatibility within the environment.
Other updates will be pushed to both PCs and Macs around the same time, but will not require any action. For more, go to: http://ird.jsc.nasa.gov/Lists/wIReD%20in%20The%20Latest%20IRD%20News/DispForm...
For technical assistance, contact the Enterprise Service Desk at x34800 from JSC. Or, directly, at 1-877-677-2123 (1-877-NSSC123) or email: nasa-esd@mail.nasa.gov
JSC IRD Outreach x41334 http://ird.jsc.nasa.gov/
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5. June Roundup Articles Ripe for the Picking
Articles for everyone are now ripe for the picking in the June Roundup, online now at:
http://www.jsc.nasa.gov/roundup/online/
At the heart of the issue is a look at women in the workforce, then and now, and how NASA was ahead of the curve in having a diverse work environment, even in the thick of the Apollo era.
This month's ISS Science Corner features a new website sharing space station benefits for humanity. Update your bookmarks and learn all you can about the wonders of our orbiting lab.
Also worth perusing are articles on commercial partner milestones; how fashion is benefiting technology development; and Center Operations' latest efforts to conserve energy/resources at JSC. While you're there, don't miss reading about how the "plan, train, fly" philosophy of the Mission Operations Directorate is shifting with the 21st century.
Check out the Spotlight on Courtney Barringer, an Education and Outreach Specialist with NASA's Human Research Program, the latest Center Scoop and NASA's Invention of the Year -- a solar-powered refrigerator that is cool in more ways than one.
JSC External Relations, Roundup Office
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6. Starport Gifts Shops Closed Today
Starport Gift Shops will be closed today, June 1, to support the Shuttlebration event. Please come by and see us at the Hilton parking lot today from 2 to 9 p.m. and again at Space Center Houston on Sunday from 10 to 3 p.m.
Lorie Shewell x30308 http://starport.jsc.nasa.gov/
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7. ARMD Seedling Fund Virtual Technical Seminars Next Week
The NASA Aeronautics Research Institute (NARI) is holding a three-day series next Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday of virtual technical seminars presented by the principal investigators of the Aeronautics Research Mission Directorate's (ARMD) 2011 Seedling Fund awards. These seminars describe the work of the teams that received the 2011 ARMD Seedling Fund awards. They offer the community an opportunity to find out about these innovative concepts and the technical progress made by the Seedling teams. You are welcome to attend and provide feedback from your desk via the webcast at: http://connect.arc.nasa.gov/nari_workshop/
For the latest agenda, listing of the meeting rooms and additional information, visit: https://armd-seedling.arc.nasa.gov/technical-seminar
Ronnie Clayton x37117 https://armd-seedling.arc.nasa.gov/technical-seminar
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8. The JSC Safety Action Team (JSAT) Says …
Keep the back straight while lifting to keep vertebrae from shifting. Congratulations to June 2012 "JSAT Says..." winner Laura Liccketto, ARES. Any JSAT member (all JSC contractor and civil servant employees) may submit a slogan for consideration to JSAT Secretary Reese Squires. Submissions for July are due by Friday, June 8th. Keep those great submissions coming. You may be the next JSAT Says Winner!
Reese Squires x37776 \\jsc-ia-na01b\JIMMS_Share\Share\JSAT\JSAT Says\JSAT Says 06-2012.pptx
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9. Optimism & Meal Planning -- Two Ways to Bust Stress
Trying to juggle busy schedules, find time for healthy meals and feel certain you'll accomplish it all? Summer wellness classes kick off next week with two classes designed to trim time and your waist line.
Optimism. Don't Worry, Be Happy ...
June 5, 11 a.m., Building 29/Room 155.
The statement "seeing the brighter side of life is good for you" is not a myth after all. Join Takis Bogdanos, JSC EAP, and explore the facts about optimism and the physical and mental health benefits of being optimistic.
Meal Planning for Busy Families
June 7, 11 a.m., Building 4S/Room 2419
Do you know what you are having for dinner tonight? Planning meals for the family can be time consuming and stressful. De-stress your evenings with quick and easy steps you can do in advance. You will also learn ways to prepare well balanced and nutritious meals that everyone will like!
Details are at the link below.
Jessica Vos x41383 http://www.explorationwellness.com/rd/AE104.aspx?June_Signup.pdf
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JSC Today is compiled periodically as a service to JSC employees on an as-submitted basis. Any JSC organization or employee may submit articles. To see an archive of previous JSC Today announcements, go to http://www6.jsc.nasa.gov/pao/news/jsctoday/archives.
Disclaimer: Accuracy and content of these notes are the responsibility of the submitters.
Human Spaceflight News
Friday, June 1, 2012
11:42 am EDT Thursday – Dragon splashdown in the Pacific off the Baja Coast
HEADLINES AND LEADS
Space Partners Reform Exploration Plans
Frank Morring, Jr. - Aviation Week
Russia wants to set up a permanent international Moon base and to focus on the space station as a testbed for human exploration deeper into the Solar System. Japan and India also see value in more lunar exploration, and many of the world's space agencies want to work more closely with China. None of those views tracks with existing or evolving U.S. space goals and objectives. As Congress and the White House continue their struggle in this election year over NASA's next steps in space, the U.S. agency's international partners are exercising more independence in their own space-exploration plans.
SpaceX cargo ship returns to Earth with on-target splashdown
William Harwood - CBS News
In the final chapter of a history-making space drama, a commercial cargo ship completed a near-flawless test flight to the International Space Station with an on-target splashdown off the Baja California peninsula Thursday, clearing the way for the start of routine cargo delivery missions later this year. Leading the space station by about 200 miles, Dragon's retro rockets ignited at 10:51 a.m. EDT (GMT-4) and burned for a planned nine minutes 50 seconds, reducing the ship's 5-mile-per-second velocity by 224 mph, just enough to drop the far side of the orbit orbit into Earth's atmosphere over the Pacific Ocean. A few minutes after the rocket firing, the spacecraft's no-longer-needed trunk section, including the craft's solar panels, was jettisoned as planned.
Dragon splashes down in Pacific, ending historic mission
Mark Matthews - Orlando Sentinel
A historic mission to the International Space Station ended with a splash Thursday when an unmanned capsule built by SpaceX of California landed safely in the Pacific Ocean — capping a 10-day trip that saw SpaceX become the world's first company to launch its own spacecraft to the station. "This is a fantastic day," said SpaceX founder Elon Musk, who beamed like a proud father after watching the capsule's safe return. "Welcome home, baby," he said. "It's like seeing your kid come home." The flawless expedition — the Dragon capsule actually splashed down two minutes early — will allow Musk and his 10-year-old company to win NASA certification as a cargo carrier to the station. Musk now is set to execute a $1.6 billion contract with NASA for 12 cargo flights to the outpost through 2016, beginning as early as September.
SpaceX scores 'grand slam' with successful mission to ISS
Dragon's return signals private sector's start with space station
James Dean - Florida Today
With the successful return to Earth of SpaceX’s Dragon capsule Thursday, the U.S. is back in the business of supplying the International Space Station just under a year after losing that capability with the shuttle’s retirement. Focus now shifts to repeating within months Dragon’s pioneering cargo flight to the outpost — the first by a privately operated spacecraft — and preparing it and other commercial vehicles to fly astronauts. SpaceX CEO Elon Musk said the just-completed demonstration mission’s resounding success should also boost support for NASA’s plan to develop commercial crew taxis, which continues to face some resistance in Congress.
Dragon Splashdown Raises Prospects For Commercial Space
Mark Carreau - Aviation Week
The Space Exploration Technologies (SpaceX) Dragon capsule has concluded the first International Space Station (ISS) resupply mission flown by a U.S. commercial provider, finalizing a significant upswing in private sector capability to shoulder U.S. civil space activities, with a May 31 splashdown in the Pacific Ocean off the southern California coast. The space freighter, with its 1,400-lb. return cargo, was spotted bobbing just a mile off target by a small SpaceX recovery fleet within minutes of the splashdown at 11:42 a.m. EDT, about 560 mi. southwest of Los Angeles. The vessel appeared to be in good condition, according to first reports.
SpaceX Dragon returns to Earth, ends historic trip
Marcia Dunn - Associated Press
The SpaceX Dragon supply ship returned to Earth on Thursday, ending its revolutionary nine-day voyage to the International Space Station with an old-fashioned splashdown in the Pacific. The unmanned capsule parachuted into the ocean about 500 miles off Mexico's Baja California, bringing back more than a half-ton of old station equipment. It was the first time since the space shuttles stopped flying last summer that NASA got back a big load from the orbiting lab.
SpaceX capsule returns to Earth, ends historic trip to space station
Associated Press
Triumphant from start to finish, the SpaceX Dragon capsule parachuted into the Pacific on Thursday to conclude the first private delivery to the International Space Station and inaugurate NASA’s new approach to exploration. “Welcome home, baby,” said SpaceX’s elated chief, Elon Musk. The old-fashioned splashdown was “like seeing your kid come home,” he said. He said he was a bit surprised to hit such a grand slam. “You can see so many ways that it could fail and it works and you’re like, ‘Wow, OK, it didn’t fail,’” Musk said, laughing, from his company’s headquarters in Hawthorne, Calif. “I think anyone who’s been involved in the design of a really complicated machine can sympathize with what I’m saying.”
SpaceX Dragon capsule splashes down after successful test flight
Irene Klotz – Reuters
The first privately developed ship to travel to the International Space Station returned home on Thursday, completing a pioneering mission for commercial firms seeking a major role in space travel. Riding beneath three parachutes, the bell-shaped SpaceX Dragon capsule ended a nine-day spaceflight and splashed down in the Pacific Ocean about 560 miles west of Baja California at 11:42 a.m. EDT (1542 GMT).
Home with the trash, SpaceX looks to more private flights
Henry Fountain – New York Times
After a nearly flawless nine-day routine, the Dragon stuck the landing, too. The first commercial mission to ferry supplies into space ended successfully Thursday when a cargo capsule known as the Dragon fell to earth on target in the Pacific Ocean off Mexico, NASA officials said. Tethered to three large parachutes, the unmanned capsule, which had carried about 1,100 pounds of food, water, clothing and equipment to the International Space Station, hit the water at the relatively gentle speed of about 10 miles an hour at 8:42 a.m. local time. It came down about 560 miles west of Baja California, witnessed by technicians from the company that built and flew it, Space Exploration Technologies, or SpaceX. They were to load the capsule aboard a barge and haul it back to Long Beach, Calif.
SpaceX Dragon Splashes Down
Andy Pasztor - Wall Street Journal
The first private spacecraft to visit the International Space Station made a dramatic return home to a precise splashdown in the Pacific Ocean off the Southern California coast. Guided by a trio of 116-feet diameter parachutes after a searing re-entry through the atmosphere, the safe descent of Space Exploration Technologies Corp.'s unmanned Dragon capsule capped a historic nine-day voyage.
SpaceX's mission ends with a splashdown in the Pacific
W.J. Hennigan - Los Angeles Times
SpaceX’s Dragon space capsule successfully splashed down in the Pacific Ocean on Thursday about 563 miles west of Baja California after spending nine days in outer space. The unmanned capsule hit the water at 8:42 a.m. PDT, marking the end of a historic mission carried out by the Hawthorne-based company, officially known as Space Exploration Technologies Corp. "Splashdown! Welcome home #Dragon!" the company tweeted.
SpaceX Dragon capsule splashes down
Dan Vergano - USA Today
The SpaceX Dragon spacecraft splashed down in the Pacific Ocean on Thursday, capping the first private cargo run to the space station. Space station astronauts detached the cargo capsule from the International Space Station in the early morning with the 58-foot robot arm aboard the orbiting lab. A series of rocket firings lowered the capsule's orbit from 230 miles high, allowing it to re-enter the atmosphere and parachute to an ocean landing about 11:42 a.m. EDT, more than 560 miles southwest of Los Angeles. The re-entry was reminiscent of Mercury and Apollo capsules returning to Earth in the era before the space shuttle, although it relied on three boats and a barge to retrieve the capsule, instead of the U.S. Navy.
SpaceX Dragon capsule splash lands in Pacific
Kerry Sheridan - Agence France Presse
US company SpaceX's cargo vessel Thursday splash landed in the Pacific Ocean, capping a successful mission to the International Space Station that blazed a new path for private spaceflight. "This really couldn't have gone better," said SpaceX chief executive Elon Musk after the unmanned capsule landed in the waters off the Mexican coast at 11:42 am Eastern time (1542 GMT). The safe return of the vessel followed a near flawless nine-day trip to deliver cargo to the $100 billion orbiting outpost, marking the first time a commercial outfit has sent its own capsule there and back.
Dragon spacecraft returns to Earth after historic test flight
Stephen Clark - SpaceflightNow.com
Placing an exclamation point on a flawless nine-day flight to the International Space Station, SpaceX's commercial Dragon spaceship made an automated pinpoint splashdown in the Pacific Ocean on Thursday, completing a feat never before achieved by private industry. The gumdrop-shaped capsule, blackened by the heat of a high-speed re-entry, splashed down in the Pacific Ocean about 560 miles west of Baja California at 11:42 a.m. EDT (1542 GMT). A fleet of recovery vessels, staffed with SpaceX engineers and divers, retrieved the capsule from the sea and set course for the California coast.
SpaceX Dragon capsule splashes down ending historic test flight
Clara Moskowitz - Space News
Space Exploration Technologies Corp.’s (SpaceX) Dragon cargo capsule dove through Earth’s atmosphere and splashed down in the Pacific Ocean early May 31, ending a monumental test flight to the international space station. The unmanned Dragon capsule made a right-on-target water landing off the coast of Baja California, Mexico, at 11:42 a.m. EDT.
SpaceX Dragon capsule splashes down ending historic test flight
Clara Moskowitz - Space.com
The world's first commercial space cargo ship dove through Earth's atmosphere and splashed down in the Pacific Ocean early Thursday (May 31), ending an historic test flight to the International Space Station. The SpaceX Dragon capsule made a water landing off the coast of Baja California, Mexico at 11:42 a.m. EDT (1542 GMT). Recovery ships have spotted the capsule and are en route to collect the vehicle to tow to Los Angeles. Mission Control in Houston informed the space station crew that the capsule's red-and-white striped parachutes were visible. "That's good news," NASA astronaut Don Pettit radioed back.
With Dragon Success, SpaceX Set for More Private Spaceflights
Mike Wall - Space.com
SpaceX's historic test flight to the International Space Station may be over, but the company's commercial Dragon spacecraft and Falcon 9 rocket will be flying again in just a few short months. The unmanned Dragon capsule returned to Earth today (May 31), successfully completing a mission that marked the first private flight to the space station. The mission, which launched May 22, was a demonstration to show that Dragon and its Falcon 9 rocket are ready to provide bona fide cargo services for NASA. The California-based SpaceX holds a $1.6 billion contract to fly 12 such supply missions, and the path now appears clear for them to begin.
SpaceX Chief Elon Musk 'Overwhelmed' by Private Spaceship Success
Clara Moskowitz - Space.com
The team behind the successful landing of the commercial spacecraft Dragon this morning is elated over the achievement — and none more than the company's founder: billionaire entrepreneur Elon Musk. The South African-born Musk founded Space Exploration Technologies Corp. (SpaceX) in 2002, and today saw it reach its greatest triumph, when the unmanned Dragon capsule splashed down in the Pacific Ocean to end a textbook mission.
Don Pettit Is About to Become Your New Favorite Astronaut
The space station scientist has found the best way imaginable to pass the lonely hours away from earth
Megan Garber - The Atlantic
One thing about life on the International Space Station: You end up with a lot of time on your hands. Really, apparently, a lot. And while most of us, should we find ourselves bored, could remedy the situation by going on a walk or catching a movie ... if you live out in space, not so much. Lucky for us, though, astronaut Don Pettit has found a totally worthwhile way to pass the time not spent berthing space capsules, installing scientific equipment, being a bold explorer into the final frontier, etc. Pettit has been orchestrating space-based science demonstrations, broadcasting them to earth via YouTube in a series he calls Science off the Sphere.
Space station crew to get special ‘Avengers’ viewing
Houston Chronicle
“The Avengers” have been given an out-of-this-world mission – their hit action movie is to be beamed aboard the International Space Station. Marvel Studios bosses have given NASA officials permission to transfer the record-breaking blockbuster to Mission Control in Houston, where the movie will be “uplinked” to the ISS, which is currently orbiting 220 miles above Earth.
Virgin Galactic Gets FAA Green Light for Experimental Spacecraft
Adario Strange - PC Magazine
The docking of the SpaceX Dragon with the International Space Station earlier this month served as a milestone for the emerging field of privately funded space travel. This week, Richard Branson's dreams of joining the commercial space flight race with his own Virgin Galactic program got a boost thanks to the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA). Scaled Composites, the company developing the spacecraft for Virgin Galactic, received an experimental launch permit from the FAA for the rocket-powered phase of testing for its suborbital spacecraft, SpaceshipTwo.
A maverick in flight
Burt Rutan, a pioneering and unconventional aerospace engineer, has made a career of doing what other people say is impossible
The Economist
“Space travel is the only technology that is more dangerous and more expensive now than it was in its first year,” says Burt Rutan, an aerospace engineer and advocate of private spaceflight. “Fifty years after Yuri Gagarin, the space shuttle ended up being more dangerous and more expensive to fly than those first throwaway rockets, even though large portions of it were reusable. It’s absurd.” As NASA, America’s space agency, comes to terms with the shuttle’s retirement, Mr Rutan is at the vanguard of a movement to reassert America’s dominance in space using commercial spacecraft, and in the process open it up to the general public.
It's not a shuttle, but Houston will take it
Juan Lozano - Associated Press
Unsuccessful in landing one of the retired space shuttles, Houston is getting the next best thing: a replica. The 122-foot long replica, dubbed "Explorer," is set to arrive in suburban Houston on Friday after an eight-day trip across the Gulf of Mexico aboard a barge from Kennedy Space Center in Florida.
Moving shuttle replica a big job
Harvey Rice - Houston Chronicle
As the space shuttle replica was being secured to a barge near the Kennedy Space Center in Florida last week, word that a storm was heading toward Cuba set Willie Tolleson's stomach churning. Tolleson and Jeff Haught were responsible for getting the replica safely down the Atlantic Coast of Florida, across the Gulf of Mexico and into Galveston Bay by Friday. "It was a big challenge," Tolleson said. "I have a lot of experience moving vessels, but I've never ever moved anything like that down the Atlantic and across the Gulf of Mexico before." The move had to be planned with precision. The shuttle had to move before the hurricane season, but couldn't move until the site was prepared at the museum. The arrival must be timed precisely so that the shuttle moves under the Kemah-Seabrook bridge at low tide to ensure clearance for the shuttle and barge. Tolleson said they have a one-hour window.
Space shuttle Enterprise ready for river ride to Intrepid museum in NYC
Robert Pearlman - collectSPACE.com
Space shuttle Enterprise, NASA's original prototype orbiter, will hit the road — and water — for a Manhattan museum over the next five days after sitting at a New York airport for the past month. The shuttle will arrive by barge at the Intrepid Sea, Air and Space Museum on Tuesday, weather permitting, where it is set to go on public display in July. After being lifted off the space agency's modified Boeing 747 aircraft in mid-May, Enterprise was parked under an open-air hangar at the airport to await its river ride to the Intrepid Sea, Air and Space Museum, a converted World War II aircraft carrier, which is berthed on the west side of Manhattan. Enterprise's wait will come to an end today, as it is rolled on a wheeled transporter from its hangar tent to a near-water location at JFK airport for its loading onto a specially-configured barge on Saturday afternoon. The lift operations are expected to take about three hours.
In a new space race, the Dragon, and Musk, have landed
Dan Turner - Los Angeles Times (Opinion)
Elon Musk, the billionaire founder of Hawthorne-based Space Exploration Technologies Corp., has been compared to Tony Stark, Marvel Comics' billionaire inventor who dons a high-tech suit of armor to become Iron Man (Musk actually had a cameo in "Iron Man 2," and the SpaceX factory was used as a set for the film). But there's a far less super-powered and slightly less sane figure from real life that he resembles more: Howard Hughes.
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COMPLETE STORIES
Space Partners Reform Exploration Plans
Frank Morring, Jr. - Aviation Week
Russia wants to set up a permanent international Moon base and to focus on the space station as a testbed for human exploration deeper into the Solar System. Japan and India also see value in more lunar exploration, and many of the world's space agencies want to work more closely with China.
None of those views tracks with existing or evolving U.S. space goals and objectives. As Congress and the White House continue their struggle in this election year over NASA's next steps in space, the U.S. agency's international partners are exercising more independence in their own space-exploration plans.
Russia and the European Space Agency (ESA) have expanded the scope of their potential cooperation beyond the joint robotic Mars missions set in motion after the U.S. unilaterally pulled out of ESA's ExoMars effort last year. Vladimir Popovkin, head of Russian space agency Roscosmos, is not shy about where he thinks the partnership forged on the International Space Station (ISS) should go next.
“We're not trying to convince you that we should not be doing anything in the area of Mars exploration, asteroid exploration,” Popovkin said May 22 at the first Global Space Exploration Conference here. “It's just in our professional opinion today we have much better chances to come up with very productive results while concentrating on the Moon.”
NASA's stated goal for human exploration in deep space is to reach a near-Earth asteroid by 2025, followed by a trip to Mars in the 2030s. Those dates are notional and highly dependent on budget levels. Congressional staffers briefing the National Research Council's Committee on Astrobiology and Planetary Science May 23 said prospects are “gloomy” at best for any increases in NASA's budget this year. If funds are sequestered under previous congressional action on deficit reduction, NASA could face a 7-8% cut across the board.
Scientists on the NRC panel are concerned about the impact of the planetary-science budget cuts that took NASA out of its joint Mars-exploration effort with ESA. But the effect of the budget uncertainty extends beyond the need for NASA to make new plans for Mars exploration.
Popovkin says in addition to working out roles and responsibilities with ESA on exploring Mars—basically, Russia will provide launches and instruments in exchange for sharing the data—the two agencies are beginning to discuss other cooperative ventures.
“We are working together, and we are pursing a variety of different objectives in terms of exploration including Mars, and including Jupiter satellites, a great many things that we are not prepared to give out at this point,” he says.
Roscosmos has approval from the Russian government to work with the Europeans, he says, noting that President-elect Vladimir Putin is expected to continue in his second term the strong support he gave the Russian space program during his first term in office.
“There has been no impact in the Roscosmos standing whatsoever,” he says of the election results.
While most of the changes in U.S. space policy have originated in the White House, a key element of that policy was drafted on Capitol Hill. Legislation spearheaded on human-rights grounds by Rep. Frank Wolf (R-Va.), chairman of the appropriations subcommittee that oversees NASA spending, prohibits the agency from spending any funds to cooperate with China.
That does not sit well with NASA's partners on the ISS, who say work on the space station and the next steps in human exploration should be open to the only other nation, aside from the U.S. and Russia, that has launched humans to orbit. Those views were on display in a heads-of-agency panel during the exploration conference.
“China is a big space power with a lot of capabilities,” says Jean-Jacques Dordain, director-general of ESA. “A partnership cannot be sustainable if it is a closed partnership. It was good to open the partnership of the Space Station Freedom, at that time, to Russia. The partnership cannot be closed.”
Popovkin agreed, as did Steve MacLean, president of the Canadian Space Agency, who noted that his government is looking at expanding its trade relations with China. “It's prudent for us to explore the possibility of working together with China,” says MacLean, a former space shuttle astronaut.
Despite the uncertainty over details of the U.S. direction in space, the agency chiefs and their surrogates at the conference here agreed that international cooperation is the only way to move beyond low Earth orbit to explore the Solar System, with both humans and robotic spacecraft. As long as building and launching spacecraft remains as expensive as it is today, cooperation will be essential for exploration.
But as Dordain says, it is difficult and slow to accomplish, something he has learned as head of a 19-nation agency. Among the issues that complicate cooperation are the need for an equitable return on the public money invested in space and the difficulty coordinating the disbursement of funds when countries have different budget cycles and appropriations processes. Russia may be ready to work with Europe, says Popovkin, but the joint project must await the meeting of ESA ministers in November for final authority to proceed.
Aside from that bilateral Mars program, the Russian space chief argues that the next big international exploration effort should build on the past 40-plus years of lunar exploration—and not repeat the sortie missions of the Apollo era.
“It's a new Moon,” Popovkin says of his agency's concept for a long-term permanent base. That outpost could take advantage of the water ice at the Moon's poles to continue exploring the lunar surface, he says, and to prepare for the next leap into the Solar System.
The concept, which is roughly the same one NASA pursued under then-President George W. Bush's Constellation program of human exploration development, would require the consensus of the other space-faring nations in the world, Popovkin stresses.
But because the ISS is basically a merger in space of NASA's old Space Station Freedom and Russia's Mir II orbital laboratory project, total consensus is not required to decide how the facilities will be used. Each partner has its own facilities on board, and Russian cosmonauts tend to support Russian scientists in the Russian modules.
Popovkin says his agency is shifting its station-research focus from life sciences work to engineering developments that can support human exploration beyond low Earth orbit. That work will center on the new multipurpose laboratory module Roscosmos hopes to launch to the space station in 2014, he says. Among activities that may be possible is an in-space repeat of the Mars 500 ground simulation of a human mission to Mars, he suggests.
The exploration conference opened a few hours after Space Exploration Technologies Inc. (SpaceX) launched a Dragon cargo capsule toward its first rendezvous and berthing with the ISS. Just as there was consensus that exploration will require international cooperation, there was consensus that the historic mission marked a “breakthrough” in the way humans reach space, in the words of Berndt Feuerbacher, president of the International Astronautical Federation (IAF), which co-sponsored the conference.
The president of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA), the other conference sponsor, is former NASA Administrator Michael Griffin, who set aside $500 million in NASA's long-term budget for the Commercial Orbital Transportation Services (COTS) seed-money effort that helped fund SpaceX's project. Griffin, a Republican who advises likely presidential candidate Mitt Romney on space policy, noted that his Democratic successors dramatically accelerated the commercial-space push he helped to start into the $500 million-a-year pace.
And while he, too, congratulated SpaceX on its achievement in launching the Dragon capsule, Griffin cautioned that the commercial space sector alone will not address the issues raised at the exploration conference.
“I'd like to back up a bit and remind everybody that commercial, quote unquote, is a procurement mechanism,” Griffin said, stressing that he was speaking only for himself. “We're still talking about procuring goods and services, using public monies, on behalf of the taxpayer to accomplish strategic purposes that our nation's policymakers have decided they want done. There is not yet a viable commercial marketplace . . . . Commercial is a procurement strategy. It is not a space policy.”
SpaceX cargo ship returns to Earth with on-target splashdown
William Harwood - CBS News
In the final chapter of a history-making space drama, a commercial cargo ship completed a near-flawless test flight to the International Space Station with an on-target splashdown off the Baja California peninsula Thursday, clearing the way for the start of routine cargo delivery missions later this year.
Leading the space station by about 200 miles, Dragon's retro rockets ignited at 10:51 a.m. EDT (GMT-4) and burned for a planned nine minutes 50 seconds, reducing the ship's 5-mile-per-second velocity by 224 mph, just enough to drop the far side of the orbit orbit into Earth's atmosphere over the Pacific Ocean. A few minutes after the rocket firing, the spacecraft's no-longer-needed trunk section, including the craft's solar panels, was jettisoned as planned.
After a half-hour free fall, the Dragon capsule, built and operated by Space Exploration Technologies -- SpaceX -- of Hawthorne, Calif., plunged back into the discernible atmosphere at an altitude of about 75 miles, using a state-of-the-art PICA-X heat shield to protect the craft from the extreme heat of atmospheric friction.
Once through the peak heating zone, two stabilizing drogue parachutes deployed at an altitude of 45,000 feet, slowing the spacecraft and triggering the release of three main parachutes at an altitude of about 10,000 feet. The huge 116-foot-wide main chutes were designed to slow the capsule's descent to a sedate 10 to 12 mph.
Splashdown some 560 miles off the Baja California peninsula came at 11:42 a.m., within sight of a SpaceX recovery team made up of about 16 engineers, technicians and divers, along with contractors operating a 185-foot crane-equipped barge, a crew boat and two inflatables. The recovery crew quickly attached cables and worked to haul the capsule aboard for the long trip back to the Port of Long Beach.
"This has been a fantastic day," said SpaceX founder and chief designer Elon Musk. "I'd like to again thank NASA and the whole SpaceX team for an amazing job. I'm really proud of everyone. This really couldn't have gone better. We're looking forward to doing lots more missions in the future and continuing to upgrade the technology and push the frontier of space transportation."
Once back in port, engineers will unload environmental samples collected at the space station before shipping the Dragon capsule to SpaceX's McGregor, Texas, engine test facility for post-flight processing and the removal of nearly 1,400 pounds of equipment sent down from the space station.
Asked what he hoped the successful mission might mean to lawmakers and the public, Musk said "it really shows that commercial spaceflight can be successful."
"This mission worked the first time, right out of the gate, all phases of the mission were successful," he said. "It was done obviously in close partnership with NASA, but in a different way. It shows that different way works, and we should reinforce that. It seems to have gotten the American public really excited. We want kids to be inspired about spaceflight and this seems to have gotten their attention. It makes sense for there to be more resources applied in this direction. When you have something that works, you've got to follow through."
The Dragon capsule, making only its second test flight -- the first to the International Space Station -- was launched atop a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket on May 22 from the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station. The solar powered spacecraft chalked up a near flawless performance and three days later, the capsule maneuvered to within about 30 feet of the space station, turned off its thrusters and stood by while Pettit, operating the lab's robot arm, locked on and pulled it in for berthing.
SpaceX and NASA originally planned three test flights before beginning routine space station resupply missions under a $1.6 billion contract calling for at least 12 missions. After the initial 2010 test flight, the first time a commercial entity had successfully recovered a spacecraft from orbit, SpaceX lobbied to combine the objectives of the second and third planned test flights into a single mission.
NASA managers ultimately agreed. The objectives of the second test flight were accomplished with a series of navigation and abort tests the day before berthing and the goals of the third flight were accomplished with the space station linkup.
"We'll await the final post flight report (but) I just don't think it's going to take us very long to make the determination that this was an extremely successful mission and they should be well on their way to starting (cargo delivery) services," said Alan Lindenmoyer, manager of NASA's commercial crew and cargo program. "Of course, officially we will look at the post flight data and make an official determination. But I would say at this point it looks like 100 percent success."
The capsule carried a relatively light load of low-priority supplies and equipment for the test flight and the astronauts off-loaded the bulk of the 1,100 pounds of gear in a single day. That left re-entry and splashdown as the final objectives of the mission.
With the space station's Canadian-built robot arm locked onto the Dragon cargo craft early Thursday, four gangs of motorized bolts holding the capsule in place were driven out, releasing the spacecraft from Harmony's Earth-facing port at 4:07 a.m.
Flight engineer Joseph Acaba, operating the robot arm from a computer work station inside the lab's multi-window cupola compartment, pulled the Dragon capsule away, moving it to a pre-determined release point well away from station structure.
One orbit later, Acaba and flight engineer Donald Pettit released the spacecraft, opening snares in the arm's latching end effector at 5:49 a.m. as the space station sailed 250 miles above the southern Indian Ocean. SpaceX flight controllers in Hawthorne, Calif.,, working in concert with NASA's flight control team at the Johnson Space Center in Houston, then monitored three quick rocket firings to begin Dragon's departure and eventual descent to Earth.
Within 11 minutes or so, the capsule was outside a pre-defined safety zone around the space safety zone and SpaceX assumed full responsibility for the remainder of the mission.
"The departure sequence is fairly quick, it's a three-burn series, two small burns then one big burn," said NASA Flight Director Holly Ridings. "The Dragon will head away from the space station outside the integrated space and that'll be the end of our integrated activity with the SpaceX/Dragon team. That process is 10 or 11 minutes after the release time."
"So again, very quick, very different from rendezvous day when we spent a lot of time in integrated space. The Dragon will head on out and be on its own in terms of the Dragon team controlling and managing the rest of the activities through the day."
The Dragon vehicle is the only space station cargo craft designed to return to Earth, giving NASA the ability to send home experiment samples and hardware for the first time since the space shuttle's retirement last year. During routine resupply missions, SpaceX plans to get high-priority items off the craft within 48 hours of splashdown with the remainder going to NASA within 14 days.
For the test flight, environmental samples will be turned over to NASA in the Port of Long Beach in a run through of the early access protocols. The remainder of the return cargo will be off-loaded in McGregor and turned over to NASA.
"This is an incredible achievement for SpaceX and NASA," said former space station commander Michael Lopez-Alegria, president of the Commercial Spaceflight Federation. "Since the retirement of the shuttle there has been no ability to return a significant amount of cargo aboard any vehicle. Having the capability to ferry payloads to low Earth orbit is essential. Having the ability to bring useful cargo such as scientific samples back to Earth will dramatically increase the research capacity of the ISS."
Dragon splashes down in Pacific, ending historic mission
Mark Matthews - Orlando Sentinel
A historic mission to the International Space Station ended with a splash Thursday when an unmanned capsule built by SpaceX of California landed safely in the Pacific Ocean — capping a 10-day trip that saw SpaceX become the world's first company to launch its own spacecraft to the station.
"This is a fantastic day," said SpaceX founder Elon Musk, who beamed like a proud father after watching the capsule's safe return. "Welcome home, baby," he said. "It's like seeing your kid come home."
The flawless expedition — the Dragon capsule actually splashed down two minutes early — will allow Musk and his 10-year-old company to win NASA certification as a cargo carrier to the station. Musk now is set to execute a $1.6 billion contract with NASA for 12 cargo flights to the outpost through 2016, beginning as early as September.
His company also announced this week that it had signed a deal with Intelsat, a major satellite operator, for a future launch aboard an under-design SpaceX rocket that will have several times the power of the Falcon 9 rocket that launched the just-completed station mission.
Still, skeptics remain.
The successful mission is not expected to make a significant difference in policy debates on Capitol Hill, where opposing factions in the space community have warred for years over the role that commercial space companies such as SpaceX should have in the space program's future.
Since 2010, the Obama administration has pressed for commercial rocketeers to take the lead in transporting U.S. astronauts to the station. Since the space shuttle was retired last summer, that service is performed by Russia at a cost of $1.5 billion over five years.
NASA's aim is to have U.S. companies ready to carry its astronauts later this decade. Musk, the billionaire co-founder of the PayPal Internet service, says SpaceX can do it within three years.
But those efforts have been checked by Congress.
Several legislators, including U.S. Sen. Richard Shelby, R-Ala., would like to see NASA prioritize its budget toward building a powerful new government rocket that is designed to blast astronauts back to the moon or to nearby asteroids — though a manned test flight isn't scheduled until at least 2021.
At issue is how much NASA should spend of its $17.7 billion budget on developing commercial transportation as opposed to a big new rocket of its own.
"When is this administration going to get the message that the Congress is not willing to subsidize so-called 'commercial' vendors at the expense of NASA's core mission of engineering and exploration?" asked Shelby at a recent congressional hearing.
The administration has pushed for about $830 million annually — less than a third of the roughly $3 billion budgeted for NASA's new rocket and capsule — but Congress supports only about half that amount. Current legislation in the House and Senate has set funding levels at around $500 million, and congressional insiders don't expect the SpaceX success to nudge that figure higher.
For a day, however, those debates were forgotten at SpaceX mission control in Hawthorne, Calif., as Musk and his engineers — most of them clad in black shirts — watched a grainy video image of the Dragon capsule float down to the Pacific beneath three huge red-and-white parachutes. It splashed down about 500 miles west of Mexico's Baja California and was pulled aboard a waiting barge soon afterward.
The Dragon capsule was launched May 22 from the Cape Canaveral Air Force range and arrived at the space station three days later. It carried a half-ton of supplies up to the six-man crew — and returned with about 1,400 pounds of used equipment and a few scientific experiments. It's the first time NASA has used a U.S. vehicle to bring material back to Earth since the space shuttle was retired last summer.
SpaceX will deliver the experiments aboard Dragon before shipping the capsule to the company's plant in McGregor, Texas. Being able to provide a quick return of scientific experiments could encourage companies and universities to take greater advantage of the $100 billion orbiting laboratory, which thus far has failed to attract the number of experiments predicted for it.
"Now that a U.S. company has proven its ability to resupply the space station, it opens a new frontier for commercial opportunities in space," said NASA Chief Charlie Bolden.
John Logsdon, a space expert at George Washington University, said he thinks the SpaceX success would help bolster that case.
"I think it makes it harder for the skeptics to be skeptical," said Logsdon, who pointed to teamwork between NASA and SpaceX as proof the commercial model could work, as well as the technical success of the SpaceX rocket and capsule.
"It bodes well for the possibility of future success in carrying crew," he said.
SpaceX scores 'grand slam' with successful mission to ISS
Dragon's return signals private sector's start with space station
James Dean - Florida Today
With the successful return to Earth of SpaceX’s Dragon capsule Thursday, the U.S. is back in the business of supplying the International Space Station just under a year after losing that capability with the shuttle’s retirement.
Focus now shifts to repeating within months Dragon’s pioneering cargo flight to the outpost — the first by a privately operated spacecraft — and preparing it and other commercial vehicles to fly astronauts.
SpaceX CEO Elon Musk said the just-completed demonstration mission’s resounding success should also boost support for NASA’s plan to develop commercial crew taxis, which continues to face some resistance in Congress.
“It really shows that commercial spaceflight can be successful,” he said. “When you have something that works, you’ve got to follow through.”
By proving its Falcon 9 rocket and Dragon worked and could safely berth with the station, SpaceX set the stage for the first of a dozen station resupply missions under a $1.6 billion contract NASA awarded in 2008.
That mission could launch from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station as soon as September.
“I believe we’re very close to having you provide cargo resupply services to the station on a regular basis now,” said Alan Lindenmoyer, manager of the NASA program supporting development of commercial cargo systems. “You have turned those hopes into a reality.”
Commercial space advocates now hold similar hopes for crewed spaceflight.
“This success should be viewed as a stepping stone for the industry, and for NASA’s future plans to fly crew to-and-from the space station on commercial vehicles,” said Eric Anderson, chairman of the Commercial Space Federation.
NASA is targeting commercial crew flights by 2017, and plans to award another round of development funding this summer to complete designs for at least two systems. SpaceX says the Dragon could be ready to fly crews within three years, depending on funding, after being upgraded with a launch escape system, life support systems and crew controls.
SpaceX’s mission was already considered a success when the station’s robotic arm pulled the Dragon from a port and dropped it into space at 5:49 a.m. Thursday.
The Dragon was heading home nine days after blasting off from Cape Canaveral early May 22 atop a Falcon 9 rocket.
En route to the station, the spacecraft deployed solar arrays for the first time and tested communications and navigation systems needed to fly near the station.
The Dragon flew close beneath the station May 24 before a slow but dramatic approach for a historic berthing last Friday.
At one point, with some laser sensors not behaving properly, SpaceX’s mission control team in Hawthorne, Calif., ordered the Dragon to retreat, made adjustments and, with NASA’s approval, resumed the approach until it was captured by the robotic arm.
John Logsdon, a space policy expert and professor emeritus at George Washington University, said the teamwork SpaceX and NASA mission control teams displayed at that critical moment, as well as in preparation for the mission, were as significant as the technical accomplishments.
“The people who oppose commercial crew thinking NASA has insufficient control over the operation should take look at how this worked and see whether they still believe that,” he said.
While berthed at the station, astronauts unpacked more than 1,100 pounds of food, clothes and student experiments from Dragon and loaded it with around 1,400 pounds of gear for the return home.
Dragon is now the only vehicle that can return significant amounts of cargo to the ground.
The capsule fired thrusters to start its drop from orbit just before 11 a.m. Thursday, and floated under three billowing main parachutes to an 11:42 a.m. splashdown in the Pacific Ocean more than 500 miles off the coast of Baja, Calif.
Flickering infrared camera views from a NASA aircraft showed the chutes deployed, and eventually the capsule bobbing in the water.
“It’s like seeing your kid come home,” said Musk.
Recovery crews lifted the capsule onto a barge within hours for return to Los Angeles and later transport to a SpaceX facility in Texas.
Musk said the Dragon could end up on a national tour to help spark student interest in spaceflight.
Overall, he called the mission a “grand slam,” meeting all its objectives with systems working better than expected.
“This really couldn’t have gone better,” he said. “I’m just overwhelmed with joy.”
The flight’s successful conclusion marks the end of NASA’s partnership with SpaceX to develop the cargo capability, started in 2006.
NASA is expected to make a final $15 million payment to SpaceX soon under the terms of their agreement, reaching a total of $396 million.
Working under nontraditional contracts that represented a new way of doing business for NASA, the agency paid fixed fees only after the company met technical milestones.
“We become partners sharing cost, sharing risk,” said Lindenmoyer. “Of course, today we get to share in the joy of the success.”
NASA has a similar partnership with Orbital Sciences Corp., of Dulles, Va., which hopes to fly its Cygnus cargo vehicle to the station before the end of the year.
Musk acknowledged that NASA support was instrumental in SpaceX’s rise from its founding 10 years ago, and from near-collapse in 2008, after three early launch failures.
“We would have died if not for NASA,” he said. “Thanks for placing your faith in SpaceX, and making all of our dreams come true.”
Dragon Splashdown Raises Prospects For Commercial Space
Mark Carreau - Aviation Week
The Space Exploration Technologies (SpaceX) Dragon capsule has concluded the first International Space Station (ISS) resupply mission flown by a U.S. commercial provider, finalizing a significant upswing in private sector capability to shoulder U.S. civil space activities, with a May 31 splashdown in the Pacific Ocean off the southern California coast.
The space freighter, with its 1,400-lb. return cargo, was spotted bobbing just a mile off target by a small SpaceX recovery fleet within minutes of the splashdown at 11:42 a.m. EDT, about 560 mi. southwest of Los Angeles. The vessel appeared to be in good condition, according to first reports.
The ocean recovery and upcoming handover of Dragon cargo to NASA mark the last of 33 mission objectives for the nine-day test mission flown under the banner of NASA’s Commercial Orbital Transportation Services (COTS) program. Controversial with some lawmakers on Capitol Hill, the six-year-old program was initiated by NASA with the ultimate goal of turning responsibility for transportation to low Earth orbit over to the private sector, in lieu of a government-led effort to replace the space shuttle.
“At this point, it looks like a 100% success,” Alan Lindenmoyer, NASA’s COTS program manager, told a post-splashdown news briefing. NASA’s formal post-flight report, however, is several weeks away.
Four companies, including SpaceX, are currently working with NASA under the Commercial Crew Development initiative to nurture at least two orbital crew transport services by 2017. Orbital Sciences, NASA’s second COTS participant, plans a similar test flight later this year.
The milestone mission triggers the final installment of $396 million in COTS assistance to the Hawthorne, Calif.-based SpaceX, founded by PayPal co-creator Elon Musk a decade ago. The flight also triggers the start of a $1.6 billion, 12-mission space station resupply agreement awarded to SpaceX by NASA in late 2008. Two of the missions are scheduled for later this year.
“The successful splashdown and the many other achievements of this mission herald a new era of U.S. commercial space flight,” NASA Administrator Charles Bolden says. Bolden has taken an advocacy role with Congress for the Obama administration and its enthusiasm for private sector space as a source of U.S. innovation and economic growth.
“NASA and Congress should build on this success by robustly funding a competitive commercial crew program that will reduce our dependence on aging Russian infrastructure, ensure the success of the space station and keep high-tech jobs here in America,” says Mike Lopez-Alegria, a former astronaut and president of the 51-member Commercial Spaceflight Federation.
NASA has relied on Russia for the launch of astronauts to the station since the shuttle’s 2011 retirement. Some in Congress have been reluctant to nurture U.S. commercial crew alternatives.
Dragon joins Russia’s Progress, the European Space Agency’s Automated Transfer Vehicle and the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency’s H-II Transfer Vehicle as regular station suppliers. However, Dragon is the only provider in the international lineup with the capability of returning a significant cargo of research samples and equipment in need of refurbishment to Earth, a critical part of future science activities planned for the six-person orbiting science laboratory. Dragon’s 5,500-lb. down mass capability dwarfs that of Russia’s three-person Soyuz.
Dragon lifted off atop a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from Cape Canaveral on May 22. The test flight was actually a combination of what were once envisioned as two missions to demonstrate the unpiloted Dragon’s rendezvous and berthing capabilities. The vessel was deftly tracked and captured by space station astronauts Don Pettit, Andre Kuipers and Joe Acaba using the 58-ft.-long Canadarm2 at the conclusion of a May 25 rendezvous.
The carefully choreographed departure of the SpaceX Dragon resupply vessel from the ISS got under way early May 31, with Dragon’s demating at 4:07 a.m. EDT, while again in the grasp of the robot arm. Acaba led the task from the Canadarm2 control post in the station’s Cupola observation deck. With the mechanical limb extended about 35 ft. below the station, Pettit commanded the release at 5:49 a.m. EDT
Three pulses of Dragon’s propulsion system maneuvered the freighter clear of the NASA-managed proximity operations zone within 12 min. (5:01 a.m. EDT). SpaceX assumed control of Dragon for the remainder of the flight. Dragon circled the Earth nearly three times before initiating a 10-min. braking maneuver at 10:51 a.m. EDT that began the descent.
A SpaceX recovery fleet — including a 185-ft. barge with a crane, smaller crew boat and pair of inflatable boats with divers — was gathered in the Pacific recovery zone.
A pair of NASA P-3 Orion aircraft flew overhead to gather infrared data on the performance of Dragon’s heat shield and serving as a communications relay. An infrared lock was established 15 min. before splashdown.
As the capsule plummeted through the atmosphere, it jettisoned a compartment called “the trunk” used to stow external space station components. The trunk also provides the attach point for Dragon’s stubby solar arrays.
A pair of drogue parachutes deployed at 45,000 ft., followed by three main chutes at 10,000 ft.. Live video of the main chutes flowed from the P-3 several minutes before the splashdown.
Once Dragon has been hoisted aboard the SpaceX barge, the recovery teams will set sail for the Port of Los Angeles in Long Beach — a two- to three-day voyage. Once in port, Dragon will be transferred to an aircraft and flown to central Texas, where SpaceX operates a test facility in MacGregor, near Waco, for the primary off-loading of return cargo.
Dragon, which was launched with just more than 1,000 lb. of nonessential food, clothing, crew equipment and research gear, is returning to Earth with nearly 1,400 lb. of crew equipment, scientific materials, space station hardware and spacesuit gear. Some of the returning gear will be refurbished and relaunched to the station.
SpaceX Dragon returns to Earth, ends historic trip
Marcia Dunn - Associated Press
The SpaceX Dragon supply ship returned to Earth on Thursday, ending its revolutionary nine-day voyage to the International Space Station with an old-fashioned splashdown in the Pacific.
The unmanned capsule parachuted into the ocean about 500 miles off Mexico's Baja California, bringing back more than a half-ton of old station equipment. It was the first time since the space shuttles stopped flying last summer that NASA got back a big load from the orbiting lab.
Thursday's dramatic arrival of the world's first commercial cargo carrier capped a test mission that was virtually flawless, beginning with the May 22 launch aboard the SpaceX company's Falcon 9 rocket from Cape Canaveral and continuing through the space station docking three days later and the departure a scant six hours before it hit the water.
"Splashdown successful!!" SpaceX's billionaire founder, Elon Musk, said via Twitter from the company's Mission Control at its Southern California headquarters.
The returning bell-shaped Dragon resembled NASA's Mercury, Gemini and Apollo spacecraft of the 1960s and 1970s, yet symbolizes the future for American space travel. Musk aims to launch the next supply mission in September under a steady contract with NASA, and says astronauts can be riding Dragons to and from the space station in as little as three or four years.
Musk said in tweet that the next version of the capsule will land with "helicopter precision."
A fleet of boats was in position, ready to retrieve the Dragon.
The SpaceX Dragon represents NASA's future as laid out by President Barack Obama. He wants routine orbital flights turned over to private business so the space agency can work on getting astronauts to asteroids and Mars.
NASA astronauts are now forced to hitch rides on Russian rockets from Kazakhstan, an extremely expensive and embarrassing outsourcing, especially after a half-century of manned launches from U.S. soil. It will be up to SpaceX or another U.S. enterprise to pick up the reins; several companies are jockeying for first place.
NASA Administrator Charles Bolden offered up congratulations to SpaceX.
"This successful splashdown and the many other achievements of this mission herald a new era in U.S. commercial spaceflight," he said in a statement.
As for the Dragon fresh from orbit, it will take a few days to transport it by barge to the Port of Los Angeles. From there, it will be trucked to the SpaceX rocket factory in McGregor, Texas, for unloading and inspection.
SpaceX plans to hustle off a few returning items while still at sea - mostly non-critical science samples - to demonstrate to NASA a fast 48-hour turnaround. That capability would be needed for future missions bearing vital experiments.
Space station astronaut Donald Pettit was eager to know the outcome. With 11 minutes remaining before splashdown, he asked NASA's Mission Control in Houston how things were going.
"Any chutes yet?" he wondered. Too early, came the reply. Four minutes later, grainy infrared TV images showed the three red-and-white-striped main parachutes all out, and Pettit was informed.
"That's good news," the astronaut said.
It took several minutes for SpaceX headquarters in Hawthorne, Calif., to pinpoint the splashdown spot because of clouds in the area that hampered NASA's tracking planes. Recovery boats sped to the scene.
Early reports were that the Dragon splashed down right on target.
The unmanned Dragon capsule returned nearly 1,400 pounds of old space station equipment and some science samples, a little more than it took up. Because it was a test flight, NASA did not want to load it with anything valuable. It carried up mostly food and clothing.
A Dragon returned from a short trip to orbit once before, on a solo shakedown cruise in December 2010.
Russia's Soyuz spacecraft for carrying crews also parachutes down, but on land, deep inside Kazakhstan. All of the government-provided cargo vessels of Russia, Europe and Japan are filled with station garbage and burn up on descent.
NASA lost the capability of getting things back when its shuttles were retired last July.
Rival Orbital Sciences Corp. hopes to have its first unmanned test flight off by year's end, launching from Wallops Island in Virginia. It also has a NASA contract for cargo runs.
Until American astronauts are flying again from U.S. soil, the focus will be on filling the space station's larder.
SpaceX capsule returns to Earth, ends historic trip to space station
Associated Press
Triumphant from start to finish, the SpaceX Dragon capsule parachuted into the Pacific on Thursday to conclude the first private delivery to the International Space Station and inaugurate NASA’s new approach to exploration.
“Welcome home, baby,” said SpaceX’s elated chief, Elon Musk. The old-fashioned splashdown was “like seeing your kid come home,” he said.
He said he was a bit surprised to hit such a grand slam.
“You can see so many ways that it could fail and it works and you’re like, ‘Wow, OK, it didn’t fail,’” Musk said, laughing, from his company’s headquarters in Hawthorne, Calif. “I think anyone who’s been involved in the design of a really complicated machine can sympathize with what I’m saying.”
The goal for SpaceX will be to repeat the success on future flights, he told reporters.
The unmanned supply ship scored a bull’s-eye with its arrival, splashing down into the ocean about 500 miles off Mexico’s Baja California peninsula. A fleet of recovery ships quickly moved in to pull the capsule aboard a barge for towing to Los Angeles.
It was the first time since the shuttles stopped flying last summer that NASA got back a big load from the space station, in this case more than half a ton of experiments and equipment.
Thursday’s dramatic arrival of the world’s first commercial cargo carrier capped a nine-day test flight that was virtually flawless, beginning with the May 22 launch aboard the SpaceX company’s Falcon 9 rocket from Cape Canaveral and continuing through the space station docking three days later and the departure a scant six hours before hitting the water.
The returning bell-shaped Dragon resembled NASA’s Mercury, Gemini and Apollo spacecraft of the 1960s and 1970s as its three red-and-white striped parachutes opened. Yet it represents the future for American space travel now that the shuttles are gone.
“This successful splashdown and the many other achievements of this mission herald a new era in U.S. commercial spaceflight,” NASA Administrator Charles Bolden said in a statement.
Alan Lindenmoyer, manager of NASA’s commercial crew and cargo program, was emotional as he turned to Musk and assured him that NASA was now his customer and that resupply services were about to unfold on a regular basis.
“You have turned those hopes into a reality,” Lindenmoyer said.
Noted Musk: “It really shows that commercial spaceflight can be successful. I mean, this mission worked first time right out the gate.”
Musk, the billionaire behind PayPal and Tesla Motors, aims to launch the next supply mission in September under a steady contract with NASA, and insists astronauts can be riding Dragons to and from the space station in as little as three or four years. The next version of the Dragon, for crews, will land on terra firma with “helicopter precision” from propulsive thrusters, he noted. Initial testing is planned for later this year.
President Barack Obama is leading this charge to commercial spaceflight. He wants routine orbital flights turned over to private business so the space agency can work on getting astronauts to asteroids and Mars. Toward that effort, NASA has provided hundreds of millions of dollars in seed money to vying companies.
NASA astronauts are now forced to hitch rides on Russian rockets from Kazakhstan, an expensive and embarrassing outsourcing, especially after a half-century of manned launches from U.S. soil. It will be up to SpaceX or another U.S. enterprise to pick up the reins. Several companies are jockeying for first place.
It will take a few days to transport the fresh-from-orbit Dragon by barge to the Port of Los Angeles. From there, it will be trucked to the SpaceX rocket factory in McGregor, Texas, for unloading and inspection. Reports from the scene are that the spacecraft looks “really good,” Musk said, with no major changes needed for future Dragons, just minor tweaks.
SpaceX — or more properly Space Exploration Technologies Corp. — plans to hustle off a few returning items while still at sea to demonstrate to NASA a fast 48-hour turnaround. That capability would be needed for future missions bearing vital experiments.
The capsule returned nearly 1,400 pounds of old space station equipment and some science samples, a little more than it took up. Because it was a test flight, NASA did not want to load it with anything valuable. It carried up mostly food.
This was only the second time a Dragon has returned from orbit. In December 2010, SpaceX conducted a solo-flying shakedown cruise. Like the Dragon before it, this capsule will likely become a traveling exhibit.
Russia’s Soyuz capsules for carrying crews also parachute down but on land, deep inside Kazakhstan. All of the government-provided cargo vessels of Russia, Europe and Japan are filled with station garbage and burn up on descent.
NASA lost the capability of getting things back when its shuttles were retired last July.
Rival Orbital Sciences Corp. hopes to have its first unmanned test flight off by year’s end, launching from Wallops Island in Virginia. It, too, has a NASA contract for cargo runs.
The grand prize, though, will involve getting American astronauts flying again from U.S. soil and, in doing so, restore national prestige.
Aboard the space station is a small U.S. flag that soared on the first shuttle mission in 1981 and returned to orbit with the final shuttle crew. It will go to the first private rocket maker to arrive with a U.S.-launched crew.
After that, promises Lindenmoyer, there will be more opportunities for partnering NASA and industry — perhaps at the moon, Mars or beyond.
The Commercial Spaceflight Federation considers the Dragon’s success a critical stepping stone. “It’s a seminal moment for the U.S. as a nation, and indeed for the world,” said its chairman, Eric Anderson.
SpaceX Dragon capsule splashes down after successful test flight
Irene Klotz – Reuters
The first privately developed ship to travel to the International Space Station returned home on Thursday, completing a pioneering mission for commercial firms seeking a major role in space travel.
Riding beneath three parachutes, the bell-shaped SpaceX Dragon capsule ended a nine-day spaceflight and splashed down in the Pacific Ocean about 560 miles west of Baja California at 11:42 a.m. EDT (1542 GMT).
Dragon, built and flown by Space Exploration Technologies, or SpaceX, returned home with a load of cargo from the $100 billion space station, where it spent the past six days.
"It really couldn't have gone better," SpaceX founder and chief executive Elon Musk told reporters. "I'm just overwhelmed with joy."
The United States has been without its own transportation to the station, a project of 15 nations, since its space shuttles were retired last year.
Rather than build and operate a government-owned replacement, NASA is investing in companies such as SpaceX, with the aim of buying rides for its cargo - and eventually astronauts - on commercial vehicles, a far cheaper alternative.
"This really shows that commercial spaceflight can be successful," Musk said.
The test flight will likely clear SpaceX to begin working on its 12-flight, $1.6 billion NASA contract to fly cargo to the station.
A second commercial freighter, built by Orbital Sciences Corp, is expected to debut this year. Orbital has a similar contract valued at $1.9 billion to deliver space station cargo.
RELEASE THE DRAGON
In Thursday's operation, astronauts used the station's 58-foot long (17.7-meter) robotic crane to detach the Dragon capsule from its berthing port at 4:07 a.m. EDT (0807 GMT) as the spacecraft soared around Earth at 17,500 miles per hour (28,164 kilometers per hour).
Dragon was released about 90 minutes later to begin its trip back home.
SpaceX successfully recovered a Dragon capsule from orbit during a previous test flight in December 2010.
"We've done it once, but it's still a very challenging phase of flight," SpaceX mission director John Couluris told reporters before the splashdown.
"The ability to get to (the) space station on our first time, to not only rendezvous but then to berth, transfer cargo and depart safely are major mission objectives. We would call that mission alone a success," Couluris said.
Recovery ships owned by American Marine Corp of Los Angeles were standing by to pick up the capsule and bring it back to the Port of Los Angeles, a trip that should take two days.
Dragon will then be taken to a SpaceX processing facility in McGregor, Texas, where it will be unloaded and inspected.
The rest of the 1,300 lb (590 kg) of gear returning on Dragon is expected to be sent to NASA within two weeks, said flight director Holly Ridings.
The company's next test will be to determine if it can speedily return some equipment from the station to NASA within 48 hours, a practice run for ferrying home precious scientific samples when Dragon begins regular cargo hauls.
European, Japanese and Russian cargo ships now flying to the station only make one-way trips, leaving Russian Soyuz spacecraft, which are used to transport crew and have little room for cargo, as the only vehicles now flying that return to Earth.
Home with the trash, SpaceX looks to more private flights
Henry Fountain – New York Times
After a nearly flawless nine-day routine, the Dragon stuck the landing, too.
The first commercial mission to ferry supplies into space ended successfully Thursday when a cargo capsule known as the Dragon fell to earth on target in the Pacific Ocean off Mexico, NASA officials said.
Tethered to three large parachutes, the unmanned capsule, which had carried about 1,100 pounds of food, water, clothing and equipment to the International Space Station, hit the water at the relatively gentle speed of about 10 miles an hour at 8:42 a.m. local time. It came down about 560 miles west of Baja California, witnessed by technicians from the company that built and flew it, Space Exploration Technologies, or SpaceX. They were to load the capsule aboard a barge and haul it back to Long Beach, Calif.
“This really couldn’t have gone better,” Elon Musk, the chief executive of SpaceX, said at a televised news conference from the company’s headquarters in Hawthorne, Calif. “I’m overwhelmed with joy. It’s been 10 years, and to have it go so well is incredibly satisfying.”
The remote-controlled Dragon had separated from the space station about seven hours before splashdown, eventually firing rockets to slow it enough so that it would descend through the atmosphere. Before separation, the station’s astronauts loaded it with about 1,400 pounds of used equipment, experiment samples and garbage.
With the success of what amounted to a trial run for the spacecraft — there were only a few minor problems during the mission, which began when the Dragon was launched atop a SpaceX rocket from Florida on May 22 — the company is now poised to begin regular supply missions, with much bigger payloads, to the space station later this year. Since the space shuttle program ended last year, the station has been resupplied by Russian and European spacecraft.
So far, SpaceX has been the most successful participant in the government’s long-term plan to shift the business of spaceflight to private enterprise, with NASA acting only as managers. The agency’s $1.6 billion contract with the company for 12 supply flights still awaits final approval, but Alan J. Lindenmoyer, NASA’s manager for commercial spaceflight, said at the news conference that he expected the approval to come quickly.
“We became your customer today,” Mr. Lindenmoyer said.
Mr. Musk said that the first regular cargo mission could come by late summer. SpaceX also hopes to win a NASA competition to ferry astronauts to the space station, using a larger rocket. And Mr. Musk talks often of an even grander goal: sending humans to Mars.
The completion of the Dragon flight, Mr. Musk said, “really shows that commercial spaceflight can be successful.”
SpaceX Dragon Splashes Down
Andy Pasztor - Wall Street Journal
The first private spacecraft to visit the International Space Station made a dramatic return home to a precise splashdown in the Pacific Ocean off the Southern California coast.
Guided by a trio of 116-feet diameter parachutes after a searing re-entry through the atmosphere, the safe descent of Space Exploration Technologies Corp.'s unmanned Dragon capsule capped a historic nine-day voyage.
The test flight sparked unprecedented world-wide interest in commercial space ventures, intended to carry cargo and astronauts into orbit later in this decade for the National Aeronautics and Space Administration.
Dragon's success also underscored that SpaceX, as the company is known, has emerged as the leading symbol of a budding industry with ambitions of launching a new era of corporate space exploits. Speaking to reporters while Dragon was still attached to the orbiting laboratory last week, Elon Musk, the company's founder and chief executive, said SpaceX could eventually pursue an initial public offering, but not until after the company establishes a reliable rhythm of launches for NASA and other customers. Mr. Musk didn't elaborate, but that could take years.
At 8:42 a.m. California time, the bell-shaped cargo vehicle drifted out of cloudy skies and settled gently in the water roughly 550 miles southwest of California's coast. Outside the designated landing area, there was a waiting barge equipped with a crane, accompanied by other recovery vessels.
NASA's mission control said the splashdown was "pretty much right on target," and the recovery vessels were headed toward the spot.
Eventually, SpaceX hopes to install deployable landing gear to allow Dragon to touch down on land.
Beginning some seven hours earlier, the station's robotic arm detached the 14-foot tall Dragon from its temporary home and then slowly swiveled it away from the space station to send it on its long trip home. After the capsule was released completely, it initiated a series of carefully calibrated maneuvers and computer- controlled engine firings to set a trajectory for splashdown. Loaded with roughly 1,400 pounds of old equipment, returning experiments and other cargo, Dragon dropped out of orbit and swooped toward the Earth with controllers reiterating that the trajectory was on track.
SpaceX says the capsule has the world's most durable heat shield to protect Dragon and its contents during re-entry. The material was developed in conjunction with NASA, and it is designed to withstand temperatures twice as hot as molten lava.
The company successfully recovered a Dragon capsule from low-earth orbit during a previous test flight in December 2010, but that mission didn't go near the space station or test the capsule's propulsion, navigation and rendezvous systems. On its first attempt to linkup with the orbiting outpost, all of Dragon's systems performed well.
Thursday's finale to a remarkably smooth trip sets the stage for SpaceX to begin regular cargo deliveries to the $100-billion station, perhaps as early as September, under a first-of-its-kind NASA contract valued at $1.6 billion.
The concept of private cargo deliveries into orbit was devised and put in place under President George W. Bush, though it has been strongly advocated by President Barack Obama's appointees at NASA. Orbital Sciences Corp., which also has a cargo resupply contract with NASA, hopes to conduct the first test flight of its unmanned system before the end of the year, launching from Wallops Island in Virginia.
SpaceX's performance already has provided a political and public-relations boost to White House plans to provide seed money to various companies vying to develop commercially built spacecraft to ferry astronauts back and forth from the station during the second half of this decade. SpaceX has submitted Dragon in that competition, and at least two winners could be picked in the next few months.
For SpaceX, a closely held Hawthorne, Calif., company created in 2002, Friday's by-the-book splashdown in many ways amounted to validation of the lean management style and nimble corporate culture Mr. Musk stressed over the years. Renowned for pushing its engineers hard to solve problems and maintain schedules, the company says it developed Dragon "from a blank sheet [of paper] to its first mission" in four years.
The mission represents a new way of operating for NASA, too, by allowing a private contractor to be in the forefront of making decisions. NASA took a back seat and reduced day-to-day supervision of the company, permitting SpaceX on its own to set the design, establish test procedures, check prototypes and take the lead in determining details of manufacturing hardware. The agency often had only about handful of its officials based at SpaceX facilities to directly oversee those myriad efforts, funded with nearly $400 million of taxpayer dollars. Mr. Musk invested more than $100 million of his private fortune in the endeavor.
NASA's hands-off approach with the unmanned capsule focused on achieving clearly defined goals, rather than mandating technical or production steps to get there. Charles Lurio, a former industry consultant who writes a commercial-space newsletter, said the cargo resupply effort answers a basic question: "Does [NASA] want the result, or does it want to dictate every detail of how to get the result?"
NASA retained final veto over docking with the space station. The goal, however, was reached at a fraction of the time and cost it likely would have taken the agency using its traditional acquisition strategies.
SpaceX's Falcon 9 rocket, which started the mission with a picture-perfect launch from Florida's Cape Canaveral on May 22, currently has more than three dozen launches under contract through 2017. In addition to station resupply flights, they include agreements with satellite broadcasters, U.S. commercial entities and foreign customers.
At a news conference before splashdown, NASA's lead flight director Holly Ridings said preliminary data from the mission indicated that "the Dragon really looks great." SpaceX's mission control center inside its headquarters tracked the spacecraft through the final orbits and a crucial, nearly 10-minute engine firing while passing near India. That slowed the capsule enough to get it out of orbit and begin its ultimate descent. There were no reported problems during crucial phases of the reentry, with NASA's mission controllers saying shortly before the parachutes were spotted, "Everything going according to plan."
Last week's pivotal docking success surprised many space experts because it was the first time the Dragon's propulsion system and rendezvous sensors were used in space.
The final hours before that linkup were tense, with Mr. Musk's team demonstrating its problem solving skills at a particularly difficult juncture. As the capsule hovered barely 200 yards from the speeding station, they had to improvise to adjust the setting of radar sensors needed to determine Dragon's distance from the space station.
"There were definitely some close moments" when aborting the mission was a possibility, Mr. Musk said afterward. But he added that engineers were able to recover "with some fast thinking" and "together [with NASA], we worked out a solution."
SpaceX's mission ends with a splashdown in the Pacific
W.J. Hennigan - Los Angeles Times
SpaceX’s Dragon space capsule successfully splashed down in the Pacific Ocean on Thursday about 563 miles west of Baja California after spending nine days in outer space.
The unmanned capsule hit the water at 8:42 a.m. PDT, marking the end of a historic mission carried out by the Hawthorne-based company, officially known as Space Exploration Technologies Corp.
"Splashdown! Welcome home #Dragon!" the company tweeted.
About five minutes before splashdown, the three main parachutes billowed open. The orange and white striped parachutes, each 116 feet in diameter, slowed the spacecraft's descent to approximately 16 to 18 feet per second.
INTERACTIVE: SpaceX's demonstration mission
A 185-foot working barge equipped with a crane, an 80-foot crew boat, and two 25-foot rigid hull inflatable boats are now steaming toward the capsule for recovery.
The Dragon is packed with 1,455 pounds of cargo that will be returned to NASA.
SpaceX last week became the world’s first privately built and operated spacecraft to dock with the International Space Station.
The test mission largely went without a hitch, SpaceX and NASA have said. The successful mission bolsters the prospects for SpaceX, which built the Apollo-like Dragon spacecraft and the Falcon 9 rocket that launched it to orbit.
Dragon's mission, which began March 22 when the Falcon 9 lifted off in the predawn hours from Cape Canaveral, Fla., is considered the first test of NASA's plan to outsource space missions to privately funded companies now that the U.S. fleet of space shuttles has been retired. SpaceX aims to prove to NASA that its Falcon 9 rocket and Dragon capsule are ready to take on the task of hauling cargo — and eventually astronauts — for the space agency.
If Dragon's recovery is successful, this will be the second time that SpaceX has launched a space capsule into orbit and had it survive a fiery reentry. The company previously pulled off the feat in December 2010 on a test mission that proved Dragon was capable of orbit and reentry.
SpaceX Dragon capsule splashes down
Dan Vergano - USA Today
The SpaceX Dragon spacecraft splashed down in the Pacific Ocean on Thursday, capping the first private cargo run to the space station.
Space station astronauts detached the cargo capsule from the International Space Station in the early morning with the 58-foot robot arm aboard the orbiting lab. A series of rocket firings lowered the capsule's orbit from 230 miles high, allowing it to re-enter the atmosphere and parachute to an ocean landing about 11:42 a.m. EDT, more than 560 miles southwest of Los Angeles.
The re-entry was reminiscent of Mercury and Apollo capsules returning to Earth in the era before the space shuttle, although it relied on three boats and a barge to retrieve the capsule, instead of the U.S. Navy.
"Dragon is in the water," said Josh Byerly of NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston, which oversees space station operations.
The spacecraft delivered roughly 1,000 pounds of food and equipment to the space station on the mission and returned with 1,455 pounds of used experiments and other cargo. The cargo delivery and return were the first of 12 such missions planned for the spacecraft through 2015, as part of a $1.6 billion agreement between SpaceX of Hawthorne, Calif., and NASA.
The spacecraft was launched last week aboard one of SpaceX's Falcon 9 rockets from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station. The mission was run by SpaceX engineers out of their Hawthorne headquarters, and there was space agency oversight. Berthing of the capsule last Friday followed two days of safety demonstrations of its maneuvering capabilities and a swift work-around of a problem with one laser that provided the range readings as it approached the orbiting lab.
"SpaceX should be justifiably proud of the technical achievement they have succeeded with on this mission," says space analyst Marcia Smith of the Space and Technology Policy Group in Arlington, Va. "Now we will have to see if the kind of private-public partnership seen here does save the taxpayer's money in the long run."
A second private firm, Orbital Science Corp., of Dulles, Va., plans to launch its Cygnus cargo capsule to the space station on a demonstration launch later this summer, part of an eight-mission contract with the space agency. "Much has been made of the commercial side of this partnerships, but taxpayers have contributed around $500 million to the development of these cargo vehicles," Smith said.
For now, the Dragon capsule represents the only cargo capsule capable of returning equipment to Earth from the space station, unlike the Russian, European and Japanese ones that burn up on re-entry.
After recovery of the capsule by divers operating from a barge, the capsule will be returned to a McGregor, Texas, factory for examination and repair for its next cargo run. Future Dragon capsules will aim for ground landings with "helicopter precision," SpaceX founder Elon Musk noted by Twitter during the capsule's return on Thursday.
SpaceX Dragon capsule splash lands in Pacific
Kerry Sheridan - Agence France Presse
US company SpaceX's cargo vessel Thursday splash landed in the Pacific Ocean, capping a successful mission to the International Space Station that blazed a new path for private spaceflight.
"This really couldn't have gone better," said SpaceX chief executive Elon Musk after the unmanned capsule landed in the waters off the Mexican coast at 11:42 am Eastern time (1542 GMT).
The safe return of the vessel followed a near flawless nine-day trip to deliver cargo to the $100 billion orbiting outpost, marking the first time a commercial outfit has sent its own capsule there and back.
NASA and US leaders have applauded the mission as a pioneering first step in the future of spaceflight, opening the path for private companies to take cargo and someday astronauts to the ISS.
The end of the three-decade US space shuttle program in 2011 left the United States without a means to reach space on its own, and has forced the world's astronauts to rely on Russia for rides to the ISS and back to Earth.
"Congratulations to the teams at SpaceX and NASA who worked hard to make this first commercial mission to the International Space Station an overwhelming success," NASA administrator Charles Bolden said in a statement.
"American innovation and inspiration have once again shown their great strength in the design and operation of a new generation of vehicles to carry cargo to our laboratory in space."
Alan Lindenmoyer, manager of NASA's Commercial Crew and Cargo Program, called it a "super great day for spaceflight."
And Eric Anderson, chair of the Commercial Spaceflight Federation, said the return "ends a historic mission for SpaceX, but opens a new chapter of 21st century access to space."
California-based SpaceX, owned by billionaire Internet entrepreneur Musk who co-founded PayPal, says it aims to begin taking people to the space station by 2015.
SpaceX and its competitor Orbital Sciences Corporation, both of which have received funding from NASA, will likely become the chief cargo servicers of the space station, which is set to remain operational until 2020, NASA has said.
SpaceX has a $1.6 billion contract with NASA to supply the station over the coming years, and Orbital Sciences has a $1.9 billion contract to do the same. Orbital's first test flight is scheduled for later this year.
The cargo ship launched from Cape Canaveral in Florida on May 22 with 521 kilograms (1,148 pounds) of gear for the space lab, including food, supplies, computers, utilities and science experiments and is returning a 660-kilogram load to Earth.
It berthed with the space station on May 25 and ISS crew spent several days unloading and restocking the spacecraft with gear to bring back to Earth.
After its ocean recovery, the Dragon will be transported to Texas so that its cargo can be given back to NASA.
Musk said the capsule itself will go on display as a historic artifact while other Dragon capsules are built for future flights.
"We look forward to doing lots more missions in the future and continuing to upgrade the technology," he said.
Japan and Europe also have cargo ships that can reach the space lab but cannot return cargo intact. SpaceX's cargo ship is larger than Russia's Soyuz capsules and is capable of bringing back more gear.
The white Dragon capsule stands 4.4 meters (14.4 feet) high and is 3.66 meters in diameter. It could carry as much as 3,310 kilograms, split between pressurized cargo in the capsule and unpressurized cargo in the trunk.
Some of the next challenges for SpaceX include developing propulsive landing capability for the Dragon so that it could land almost like a helicopter, and continuing work to outfit the capsule for crew capability, Musk said.
SpaceX's first professional cargo resupply mission to the ISS is planned for later this year.
The US space agency has given SpaceX about $390 million so far of the total $680 million that the company has spent on cargo development, according to SpaceX president Gwynne Shotwell.
SpaceX also gets funding from NASA on a separate effort to develop a commercial crew vehicle for carrying astronauts to space, along with competitors Blue Origin, Boeing and Sierra Nevada.
Dragon spacecraft returns to Earth after historic test flight
Stephen Clark - SpaceflightNow.com
Placing an exclamation point on a flawless nine-day flight to the International Space Station, SpaceX's commercial Dragon spaceship made an automated pinpoint splashdown in the Pacific Ocean on Thursday, completing a feat never before achieved by private industry.
The gumdrop-shaped capsule, blackened by the heat of a high-speed re-entry, splashed down in the Pacific Ocean about 560 miles west of Baja California at 11:42 a.m. EDT (1542 GMT).
A fleet of recovery vessels, staffed with SpaceX engineers and divers, retrieved the capsule from the sea and set course for the California coast.
"This couldn't have gone any better," said Elon Musk, SpaceX's CEO and chief designer. "I'm just overwhelmed with joy."
The Dragon spacecraft became the first privately-owned vehicle to fly to the International Space Station, notching that triumph May 25 at the end of a cautious laser-guided approach to the complex.
The capsule also became the first U.S. spacecraft to reach the space station since the last space shuttle flight departed in July 2011.
With Thursday's splashdown, Dragon proved it could fill a void left after the shuttle's retirement in returning experiment samples, broken components and other excess hardware to Earth.
"In baseball terminology, this would be a grand slam," Musk said. "This was a bigger success than we had a reasonable right to expect."
SpaceX is due to begin regular cargo flights to the space station as soon as September, and Dragon will be the only craft on the lab's roster of servicing vehicles able to return significant hardware to Earth.
The Dragon test flight launched from Florida on May 22 aboard a Falcon 9 rocket. Three days later, after a flyby to demonstrate rendezvous techniques, the spacecraft precisely flew within 30 feet of the space station, close enough for the crew inside the complex to grapple Dragon with a robotic arm.
The astronauts unloaded more than 1,000 pounds of cargo from Dragon's pressurized compartment, including food, clothing, student experiments, and computer gear. The crew installed more than 1,300 pounds of equipment back inside Dragon for return to Earth.
After six days attached to the complex, Dragon was released from the lab's robotic arm at 5:35 a.m. EDT (0935 GMT).
SpaceX flight controllers at the company's headquarters in Hawthorne, Calif., commanded the ship's thrusters to five for nearly 10 minutes a few hours later. The thrust slowed Dragon's speed by more than 200 mph, enough for its orbit to drop into the atmosphere for re-entry.
Dragon's blunt end was shielded by a capable carbon material called PICA-X, deflecting temperatures of up to 3,000 degrees Fahrenheit as the spacecraft plunged back to Earth at 25 times the speed of sound.
Chase planes circling the landing zone caught a glimpse of Dragon with infrared cameras, confirming the craft's parachutes unfurled to slow the spacecraft to a gentle velocity of about 11 mph.
Although image quality from the chase planes was poor, the intermittent video appeared to show Dragon bobbing in the water shortly after splashdown. SpaceX later released a photograph of the spacecraft in the Pacific Ocean, appearing charred but in good shape.
The successful conclusion of the test flight capped a triumphant mission for SpaceX, which intends to outfit the Dragon spacecraft for crewed launches and landings within three or four years. SpaceX is competing for funding from NASA to finance the effort.
"It really shows that commercial spaceflight can be successful," Musk said of the mission. "This mission worked the first time right out of the gate. All phases of the mission were successful."
The flight was the culmination of a six-year, $396 million Commercial Orbital Transportation Services, or COTS, agreement between SpaceX and NASA, in which the government provided investment into the company's development of the Falcon 9 booster and Dragon spacecraft.
NASA delivered funding payments as SpaceX met milestones in design and testing, and the space agency will deliver the final installment of money upon the successful retrieval of space station cargo from Dragon's cabin.
The COTS program aimed to help industry provide commercial cargo transportation systems for the space station after the shuttle's retirement. When the shuttle retirement decision was made, there were no companies positioned to offer such services.
"We became your customer today," Alan Lindenmoyer, NASA's commercial crew and cargo program manager, told Musk after splashdown. "I believe we're very close to having you provide cargo resupply services to the station on a regular basis."
Formal reviews in June should clear the way for SpaceX's first operational cargo mission in September, Lindenmoyer said.
NASA's other partner in the COTS program is Orbital Sciences Corp., which is scheduled to conduct a similar test flight to the space station by the end of 2012.
SpaceX and Orbital Sciences have contracts for operational resupply missions to the space station following their COTS demonstration flights. SpaceX's $1.6 billion contract covers 12 missions through 2015, while Orbital is signed up for eight flights for $1.9 billion in the same time period.
SpaceX Dragon capsule splashes down ending historic test flight
Clara Moskowitz - Space News
Space Exploration Technologies Corp.’s (SpaceX) Dragon cargo capsule dove through Earth’s atmosphere and splashed down in the Pacific Ocean early May 31, ending a monumental test flight to the international space station.
The unmanned Dragon capsule made a right-on-target water landing off the coast of Baja California, Mexico, at 11:42 a.m. EDT.
Dragon departed the space station at 5:49 a.m. EDT, when it was released from the outpost’s robotic arm after being plucked from a docking port on station’s Earth-facing Harmony module. The unmanned capsule began its return to Earth in earnest at 10:51 a.m. EDT with a nine minute, 50 second deorbit engine burn.
Dragon became the first private vehicle to visit the space station when it docked there May 25, three days after launching atop a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from Cape Canaveral, Fla. The capsule spent five days attached to the $100 billion orbiting laboratory.
Prior to undocking, Dragon was packed with 620 kilograms of crew items, used hardware and completed science experiments for its return trip.
Dragon’s Hawthorne, Calif.-based flight team was elated over the successful conclusion of the nine-day mission — and none more than company founder Elon Musk.
“The point at which the main parachutes opened and all three were working and Dragon was descending normally, that’s the point at which I really felt relieved and knew that the mission was likely to be 100 percent successful,” Musk said during a press conference following the splashdown. “I’m just overwhelmed with joy.”
When Musk saw the first high-resolution photo of the charred but intact capsule floating in the ocean, he said he thought, “‘Welcome home, baby.’ It’s really great, it’s like seeing your kid come home.” Dragon’s flight was a test run for the 12 cargo delivery flights SpaceX is expected to fly for NASA under a $1.6 billion contract awarded in 2008.
NASA has invested about $800 million in SpaceX to date, including $336.7 million in advance payment on its cargo delivery contract and all but the final $15 million of a $396 million Commercial Orbital Transportation Services agreement awarded in 2006.
Musk said the mission would not have been possible, and indeed SpaceX might not even exist, were it not for NASA.
“We would have died were it not for NASA,” Musk said.
Addressing Alan Lindenmoyer, manager of NASA’s Commercial Crew and Cargo Program, Musk said: “Thanks for placing your faith in SpaceX and making all of our dreams come true.”
“We weren’t sure exactly how it was going to end up,” Lindenmoyer admitted. “It was a bit of an experiment. Today we get to share in the joy of the success. It is a new way of doing business and the fact that we were so successful in meeting these objectives so early on, I would say absolutely that this is a model that works.”
Musk said he hoped the successful mission would also help sway critics of the plan, particularly those in Congress who doubt that privately built spaceships are safe or reliable.
“I think it really shows that commercial spaceflight can be successful,” Musk said. “This mission worked for the first time right out of the gate. It was done, obviously, in close partnership with NASA, but in a different way, and it shows that that different way works and we should reinforce that.”
The space-flown Dragon capsule will soon be unpacked and shipped to SpaceX’s facility in McGregor, Texas, for processing. But eventually it might get another taste of glory.
“I think it’d be cool to maybe do a little tour of the country and show it to people around the country, get students excited about space,” Musk said.
SpaceX Dragon capsule splashes down ending historic test flight
Clara Moskowitz - Space.com
The world's first commercial space cargo ship dove through Earth's atmosphere and splashed down in the Pacific Ocean early Thursday (May 31), ending an historic test flight to the International Space Station.
The SpaceX Dragon capsule made a water landing off the coast of Baja California, Mexico at 11:42 a.m. EDT (1542 GMT). Recovery ships have spotted the capsule and are en route to collect the vehicle to tow to Los Angeles.
Mission Control in Houston informed the space station crew that the capsule's red-and-white striped parachutes were visible.
"That's good news," NASA astronaut Don Pettit radioed back.
Dragon departed the space station earlier today, when it was released from the outpost's robotic arm after being plucked from a docking port on station's Earth-facing Harmony module. The unmanned capsule began its return to Earth in earnest at 10:51 a.m. EDT (1451 GMT) with a nine minute, 50 second de-orbit engine burn.
Dragon became the first private vehicle to visit the space station when it docked there May 25, three days after launching atop a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from Cape Canaveral, Fla. The capsule spent a total of five days, 16 hours and 5 minutes attached to the $100 billion orbiting laboratory.
"It was a major success for us," Dragon mission director John Couluris of SpaceX said during a news conference yesterday (May 30). "The trust and hard work that NASA helped SpaceX with were really important. The ability to get to the space station on our first time, to not only rendezvous but to berth — we would call that mission alone a success."
SpaceX's test drive for NASA
The nine-day Dragon flight was a test run for the 12 cargo-delivery flights SpaceX (short for Space Exploration Technologies Corp.) is contracted to fly for NASA for a total of $1.6 billion. The Hawthorne, Calif.-based company was founded in 2002 by billionaire entrepreneur Elon Musk, who also co-founded PayPal.
"We are hoping to continue working with NASA and hopefully flying crew within three years," Musk said. "This was a crucial step and makes the chances of becoming a multi planet species more likely."
Though this flight is only Dragon's second-ever trip to orbit, the mission went smoothly from end to end, with all the major milestones achieved without mishap.
That Dragon's re-entry and splashdown went well marks another significant achievement, as the spacecraft is alone among the automated cargo freighters that service the space station in its ability to carry supplies not just up, but down.
While the cargo-delivery spacecraft built by Russia, Japan and Europe are designed to burn up during re-entry, Dragon is equipped with a heat shield and parachutes to survive the fiery plunge.
Dragon is packed with 1,367 pounds (620 kg) of crew items, used hardware and completed science experiments for its return trip. On the way up, the spacecraft delivered student-designed experiments and food, clothing and other supplies for the station's astronauts.
Will astronauts be next?
SpaceX is one of two private firms receiving NASA funding to develop robotic cargo spacecraft (the other is Orbital Sciences Corp. of Dulles, Va.). SpaceX is also competing for a NASA contract to carry crew, as well as cargo, aboard Dragon.
Officials say if work proceeds on schedule, the first humans could fly on Dragon as soon as 2015. The capsule, which measures 14.4 feet tall (4.4 meters) and 12 feet wide (3.7 m), is designed to fit up to seven astronauts aboard.
With Dragon Success, SpaceX Set for More Private Spaceflights
Mike Wall - Space.com
SpaceX's historic test flight to the International Space Station may be over, but the company's commercial Dragon spacecraft and Falcon 9 rocket will be flying again in just a few short months.
The unmanned Dragon capsule returned to Earth today (May 31), successfully completing a mission that marked the first private flight to the space station. The mission, which launched May 22, was a demonstration to show that Dragon and its Falcon 9 rocket are ready to provide bona fide cargo services for NASA.
The California-based SpaceX holds a $1.6 billion contract to fly 12 such supply missions, and the path now appears clear for them to begin.
"Assuming all the objectives are successfully accomplished, we can go right into that flight," NASA space station program manager Mike Suffredini said on May 25, after Dragon docked with the orbiting lab.
The first contracted cargo flight is slated for this September, Suffredini added. The second one will likely take place just a few months later, in December.
Filling the space shuttle's shoes
NASA is looking to SpaceX and other private American companies to fill the cargo- and crew-carrying void left by the retirement of the space shuttle program last year.
The space agency has also inked a $1.9 billion deal with Orbital Sciences Corp., of Dulles, Va., to make eight unmanned supply flights with its Cygnus spacecraft and Antares rocket. Orbital officials have said they're aiming for a test flight to the station this November or December, with the contracted missions to begin shortly thereafter if everything goes well.
Private astronaut taxis aren't as close to being ready as the cargo craft. With financial help from NASA's Commercial Crew Development (CCDev) program, SpaceX is upgrading Dragon to carry up to seven passengers, and company founder and CEO Elon Musk has said the vehicle could be operational within the next three years or so.
A handful of other firms — Blue Origin, Sierra Nevada and Boeing — are also designing and building manned vehicles with CCDev funding. All say they can likely be up and running in the 2015-2016 timeframe; NASA wants at least two vehicles to be ready by 2017.
Dozens of flights
And NASA isn't SpaceX's only customer.
The company's launch manifest lists about two dozen non-NASA Falcon 9 liftoffs between now and 2017, including eight for satellite firm Iridium Communications, Inc.
SpaceX is also working on a huge booster called the Falcon Heavy, which is expected to be the world's most powerful rocket when it starts flying. The first test flight of the Falcon Heavy — which SpaceX says will be able to loft 117,000 pounds (53,000 kilograms) of payload into orbit — is slated for next year.
If all goes well with the testing, the 229-foot-tall (69-meter) Falcon Heavy may be blasting off regularly before too long. SpaceX announced Tuesday (May 29) that it had landed its first customer for the Falcon Heavy — satellite communications provider Intelsat.
SpaceX's announcement did not list a targeted time for the Intelsat launch, or the total sale for the flight. SpaceX officials, however, have said that Falcon Heavy launches will cost about $100 million per mission, twice that of its commercial Falcon 9 flights.
SpaceX Chief Elon Musk 'Overwhelmed' by Private Spaceship Success
Clara Moskowitz - Space.com
The team behind the successful landing of the commercial spacecraft Dragon this morning is elated over the achievement — and none more than the company's founder: billionaire entrepreneur Elon Musk.
The South African-born Musk founded Space Exploration Technologies Corp. (SpaceX) in 2002, and today saw it reach its greatest triumph, when the unmanned Dragon capsule splashed down in the Pacific Ocean to end a textbook mission.
Dragon launched on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket May 22 and three days later became the first privately built vehicle to dock at the International Space Station. Today (May 31), after more than five days at the station, Dragon departed and flew home to splash down in the Pacific Ocean.
"The point at which the main parachutes opened and all three were working and Dragon was descending normally, that’s the point at which I really felt relieved and knew that the mission was likely to be 100 percent successful," Musk said during a press conference following the splashdown. "I'm just overwhelmed with joy."
When Musk saw the first high-resolution photo of the charred but intact capsule floating in the ocean, he said he thought, "'Welcome home, baby.' It's really great, it's like seeing your kid come home."
Musk is also the co-founder of internet payment service PayPal and electric car company Tesla. He has financed SpaceX partly through his own money, and partly through investments from NASA, which is hoping commercial spacecraft can take over the cargo- and crew-delivery tasks of the retired space shuttles.
Dragon's mission was a trial run for SpaceX's plan to fly 12 supply runs to the space station for a total of $1.6 billion.
Musk said the mission would not have been possible, and indeed SpaceX might not even exist, were it not for NASA.
"Thanks for placing your faith in SpaceX and making all of our dreams come true," he said to Alan Lindenmoyer, manager of NASA's Commercial Crew and Cargo program.
"We weren't sure exactly how it was going to end up," Lindenmoyer admitted. "It was a bit of an experiment. Today we get to share in the joy of the success. It is a new way of doing business and the fact that we were so successful in meeting these objectives so early on, I would say absolutely that this is a model that works."
Musk hoped today's success would also help sway critics of the plan, particularly those in Congress, who doubt that privately built spaceships are safe or reliable.
"I think it really shows that commercial spaceflight can be successful," Musk said. "This mission worked for the first time right out of the gate. It was done, obviously, in close partnership with NASA, but in a different way, and it shows that that different way works and we should reinforce that."
The space-flown Dragon capsule will soon be unpacked and shipped to SpaceX's facility in Texas for processing. But eventually it might get another taste of glory.
"I think it'd be cool to maybe do a little tour of the country and show it to people around the country, get students excited about space," Musk told SPACE.com.
Don Pettit Is About to Become Your New Favorite Astronaut
The space station scientist has found the best way imaginable to pass the lonely hours away from earth
Megan Garber - The Atlantic
One thing about life on the International Space Station: You end up with a lot of time on your hands. Really, apparently, a lot. And while most of us, should we find ourselves bored, could remedy the situation by going on a walk or catching a movie ... if you live out in space, not so much.
Lucky for us, though, astronaut Don Pettit has found a totally worthwhile way to pass the time not spent berthing space capsules, installing scientific equipment, being a bold explorer into the final frontier, etc. Pettit has been orchestrating space-based science demonstrations, broadcasting them to earth via YouTube in a series he calls Science off the Sphere.
Pettit is clearly incredibly excited about these demonstrations -- and his enthusiasm makes for buoyant viewing, even in zero gravity. A couple weeks ago, the astronaut, chemical engineer, and Eagle Scout took zero-gravitied water droplets and used sound waves to manipulate them. It was beautiful and powerful and weird. Yesterday, though, Pettit outdid himself -- by stripping down to a seemingly self-cut muscle T, taking a vacuum cleaner hose, and using said hose to create a makeshift, spaceborn didgeridoo (a wind instrument developed by Indigenous Australians of northern Australia around 1,500 years ago)
None of that is a typo.
Space station crew to get special ‘Avengers’ viewing
Houston Chronicle
“The Avengers” have been given an out-of-this-world mission – their hit action movie is to be beamed aboard the International Space Station.
Marvel Studios bosses have given NASA officials permission to transfer the record-breaking blockbuster to Mission Control in Houston, where the movie will be “uplinked” to the ISS, which is currently orbiting 220 miles above Earth.
The film will then be screened for the space station crew.
Marvel Studios’ co-president Louis D’Esposito says, “The studio is privileged to share Marvel’s ‘The Avengers’ with those up in space exploring the universe. A special thanks goes to NASA for utilizing their incredible technology to make this special screening miles above us in space happen. It is a screening that would make (Iron Man’s alter ego) Tony Stark envious.”
Virgin Galactic Gets FAA Green Light for Experimental Spacecraft
Adario Strange - PC Magazine
The docking of the SpaceX Dragon with the International Space Station earlier this month served as a milestone for the emerging field of privately funded space travel. This week, Richard Branson's dreams of joining the commercial space flight race with his own Virgin Galactic program got a boost thanks to the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA).
Scaled Composites, the company developing the spacecraft for Virgin Galactic, received an experimental launch permit from the FAA for the rocket-powered phase of testing for its suborbital spacecraft, SpaceshipTwo.
"This important milestone enables our team to progress…bringing us a major step closer to bringing our customers to space," said George Whitesides, president and CEO of Scaled Composites. "We thank the FAA for their timely issuance of this permit, and for their responsible oversight of the test program."
Although the flamboyant and outspoken billionaire has made much of his aspirations tied to Virgin Galactic, the key difference between Branson's venture and that of SpaceX's Elon Musk is that the former is still focused, at this point, on suborbital travel, rather than the true orbital space flight currently being executed by the Dragon. Despite these differences, the two commercial ventures are indeed more similar than not in terms of their efforts to make commercial space travel a reality.
Branson made sure to laud Musk's efforts after the successful space docking. "Congratulations SpaceX for the first ever commercial hook up with the International Space Station," he said. "It is an incredible achievement and we want to extend many congratulations to Elon Musk and the whole team at SpaceX for an historic flight. Together with Virgin Galactic, there are now two commercial spaceships in the world. We look forward to working together with SpaceX in the future. The sky's no longer the limit!"
Branson has publicly stated that he hopes to launch his first flight by the end of this year, but the company has yet to set a firm launch date. Nevertheless, there is real enthusiasm for the venture, with over 500 tickets for the first flights already sold. In fact, the 500th passenger reservation, announced in March, turned out to be Ashton Kutcher, the actor currently working on a film in which he plays the part of the late Apple CEO Steve Jobs.
According to Virgin Galactic, SpaceShipTwo is the first rocket-powered craft designed to carry commercial passengers to receive such a permit from the FAA. The company recently released compelling new video of test flights being conducted as it prepares to make its own mark on the history of space travel.
A maverick in flight
Burt Rutan, a pioneering and unconventional aerospace engineer, has made a career of doing what other people say is impossible
The Economist
“Space travel is the only technology that is more dangerous and more expensive now than it was in its first year,” says Burt Rutan, an aerospace engineer and advocate of private spaceflight. “Fifty years after Yuri Gagarin, the space shuttle ended up being more dangerous and more expensive to fly than those first throwaway rockets, even though large portions of it were reusable. It’s absurd.”
As NASA, America’s space agency, comes to terms with the shuttle’s retirement, Mr Rutan is at the vanguard of a movement to reassert America’s dominance in space using commercial spacecraft, and in the process open it up to the general public. In 2004 a reusable spaceplane he designed called SpaceShipOne completed the first manned private spaceflights, winning the $10m Ansari X prize. Scaled Composites, the aerospace company Mr Rutan founded, is now developing a larger SpaceShipTwo craft for Virgin Galactic, a space-tourism company. And Mr Rutan recently unveiled his boldest design yet: what would be the largest aircraft ever, dubbed Stratolaunch, which would carry and launch a rocket capable of reaching orbit.
He predicts that within a dozen years private spacelines will have flown more than 100,000 people outside the atmosphere. “Every one of those people will have paid for their seat—and they won’t be told what to do by an employer or the government,” he says. “This volume will create opportunities for people to come up with reasons for flying in space other than it’s a fun, roller-coaster ride. We didn’t know the importance of home computers before the internet. We had them mostly for fun, then the internet came along and was enabled by all the PCs out there.”
Mr Rutan believes that firms investing in private space-travel might see returns rivalling those of today’s internet giants. “Once the research is done, the direct operating costs of flying a routine SpaceShipTwo flight will be a small fraction of the ticket price,” he says. “Every element of this new industry will be extremely profitable.” In the future a planned SpaceShipThree might, for example, open up suborbital intercontinental travel, reducing the travel time from London to Sydney to just a couple of hours.
Whether or not the analogy between spaceflight and the internet is apt, the two are linked in one sense: much of the money for today’s private space companies has come from starry-eyed computer entrepreneurs. Paul Allen, co-founder of Microsoft, bankrolled both SpaceShipOne and Stratolaunch. Elon Musk, who made his fortune from PayPal, went on to form SpaceX, the first private company to reach orbit and another partner in the Stratolaunch project. Amazon’s founder, Jeff Bezos, has Blue Origin, and Jeff Greason, a former Intel manager, has XCOR Aerospace, both start-ups dedicated to increasing public access to space with low-cost launches.
As the private sector steps up, Mr Rutan sees the state’s role in space gradually shrinking. In March, he notes happily, America’s Congress extended until at least 2015 a restriction preventing the Federal Aviation Administration, which regulates aviation, from enacting safety regulations for commercial space travel. “If spaceships are regulated like commercial airliners, it will probably never happen,” he says.
Small is beautiful
Not surprisingly, Mr Rutan is no fan of NASA, with its high costs and huge size. He disapproves of its unmanned programme because exploration with robotic vehicles has come to be seen as an alternative to sending humans. NASA’s management culture, he says, meant it was unable to solve the space shuttle’s safety problems and cost overruns. The sprawling shuttle programme (“a dismal failure”, according to Mr Rutan) involved up to 12,000 workers and eventually cost over $200 billion. By contrast, Scaled Composites developed SpaceShipOne, including its rocket motor, electronics, control systems, test facilities and a simulator using no more than 65 people, and for a modest $25m.
Although SpaceShipOne carried just one astronaut, had no room for cargo and achieved only suborbital flight (the shuttle could reach low Earth orbit), Mr Rutan’s achievement was remarkable. It will probably be the last time that a new spacecraft is essentially the vision of a single person. His design conformed closely to public expectations of how a spaceship should look: graceful space-age curves, elegant wings and futuristic portholes. “I designed the shape, the systems, the landing gear and the configuration,” he says. “Knowing that doing things by committee always takes a long time, I made decisions on the spot rather than analyse and study and get other opinions.”
SpaceShipOne relied on two key technologies. The first was the use of a jet-powered carrier aircraft, called White Knight, to launch from high in the atmosphere. This meant that SpaceShipOne could take off from a normal airstrip rather than an expensive launch pad, required much less fuel than if it had started at ground level, and could glide to safety if anything went wrong. The second innovation was a new way to re-enter the atmosphere, rotating the entire tail upwards to provide self-correcting “feathered” drag, like a falling shuttlecock. “I had some of the best aerodynamicists come out of academia to tell me the feathering wouldn’t work,” Mr Rutan recalls. “But I thrive on things that are risky, knowing that if they’re not risky, there’s no chance of having a breakthrough.”
That might make Mr Rutan sound like something of a daredevil. Yet of the 46 planes and one spacecraft he has designed over four decades, none of his piloted test aircraft have ever crashed. (Three Scaled Composites workers were killed in a ground-level explosion in 2007, however, while working on Virgin Galactic’s SpaceShipTwo). Mr Rutan also had a close shave in 1986, when the wings of his high-endurance Voyager aeroplane, piloted by his brother Dick, scraped badly on the runway during take-off. But Voyager made it aloft successfully and, nine days later, became the first aircraft to circumnavigate the globe without stopping or refuelling.
Voyager is credited for demonstrating the strength and reliability of lightweight composite materials in aviation, paving the way for modern “plastic planes” such as the largely carbon fibre-reinforced plastic Boeing 787. “We used the best materials we could afford at the time,” says Mr Rutan. “I felt that if I could pull that off, we would have the credibility of a company that was technically sophisticated. I didn’t think of it as something that would lead to all-composite airliners.”
Having built model aircraft as a child, Mr Rutan studied aeronautical engineering at California Polytechnic State University. He then spent many years creating propeller aircraft and small jets, seating between two and eight passengers, for the general aviation market. He quickly gained a reputation for designing elegant, quirky aircraft sporting canards (small forward wings), twin booms and angled winglets. In an industry that traditionally values function over form, Mr Rutan’s planes deftly combined the two. “I choose attractive designs over ugly ones all the time,” he says. “To my mind, things that are efficient tend to be beautiful, like long, slender, smooth wings. And it’s usually justified by them being lighter or easier to build, or having better performance.”
Some of his more outlandish projects have included drones for the Pentagon, 40-metre wind-turbine blades, a “mast wing” for the 1988 America’s Cup-winning yacht, a composite body for GM’s 1991 Ultralite concept car, and an odd, asymmetrical plane called the Boomerang. But most ambitious of all is Stratolaunch. Funded by Mr Allen, it will recycle two second-hand Boeing 747 jets into a huge twin-bodied aircraft, weighing over 500 tonnes and with a record-breaking 116-metre wingspan. It will carry and launch a multi-stage SpaceX rocket that, it is hoped, will eventually carry humans into orbit.
Since his retirement, Mr Rutan is no longer responsible for this monster plane’s efficacy. However, he still works as a consultant at Scaled Composites, where he recently delivered what could be his most telling criticism of the giant aircraft. “I generally don’t go to meetings because being candid on things I don’t like is like throwing a monkey wrench into the machinery,” he says. “But when I saw the latest Stratolaunch drawings, I beat them up some, because it was just so…ugly.”
One of Mr Rutan’s last designs before retiring from Scaled Composites last year was for that science-fiction staple, a flying car. The BiPod is a sleek, twin-bodied hybrid-electric vehicle powered by two motorcycle engines, two electric motors and a bank of lithium-ion batteries. Each boom houses a single-seater cockpit, one equipped with a joystick for flying, the other with a steering wheel for driving. To convert from air to ground transportation, the wings are removed by hand and stowed between the pods, making the BiPod thin enough to squeeze into a one-car garage. Although a BiPod prototype flew the day before Mr Rutan retired, the project is now on hold at Scaled Composites, awaiting the money to develop it further and take it into production.
Mr Rutan no longer has the resources of a spacecraft manufacturer at his disposal, but he continues to design planes. His latest idea is for an aircraft that is part-seaplane, part-wingship, able to skim efficiently from lake to lake near his retirement home in Idaho. “I learned about wingships on a trip to Russia for the Pentagon in 1993,” he says. “They direct air under the wing so at low speeds they have almost no drag. I’ll probably start building something in a month or so, just for fun.”
Thanks to the ultra-efficient Voyager, the hybrid-electric BiPod and the fact that he is in the process of building a 31-acre photovoltaic solar farm in the California desert, Mr Rutan is occasionally mistaken for an environmentalist. It is an accusation he is quick to deny. “I drove an electric car for seven years because of its advanced technology, not because I have any concerns about energy resources,” he says. “I have none at all. And when environmentalists say that global warming is dangerous, unprecedented and that we’ll have a tipping point for atmospheric carbon dioxide, it’s just nonsense.”
Doing his own thing
He also believes that he has solved the Kennedy assassination and that ancient Egyptians built pyramids and monuments by casting solid stone in moulds. As might be expected, Mr Rutan is used to scepticism. “At various times over 20 years, I did preliminary designs for aircraft like the Stratolaunch. For that whole time I was encouraging us to do something that almost everyone else felt you could not do,” he says. “But you never run into breakthroughs when you say, ‘You can’t do that.’ You run into them when you’ve found something that doesn’t make sense and you find a way to make it work. A breakthrough always starts with nonsense.” It is his willingness to follow his own instincts towards unorthodox solutions that had made Mr Rutan such a successful innovator. He doesn’t care what other people think, and has always just gone his own way regardless.
It's not a shuttle, but Houston will take it
Juan Lozano - Associated Press
Unsuccessful in landing one of the retired space shuttles, Houston is getting the next best thing: a replica.
The 122-foot long replica, dubbed "Explorer," is set to arrive in suburban Houston on Friday after an eight-day trip across the Gulf of Mexico aboard a barge from Kennedy Space Center in Florida.
Houston officials had alleged NASA's decision last year to not award the city one of the agency's four retired shuttles was politically motivated. Many Houstonians were offended by the decision as the city is home to Johnson Space Center and Mission Control.
But NASA's watchdog group said the agency acted properly.
Explorer's new home will be Space Center Houston, Johnson Space Center's official visitor center.
Moving shuttle replica a big job
Harvey Rice - Houston Chronicle
As the space shuttle replica was being secured to a barge near the Kennedy Space Center in Florida last week, word that a storm was heading toward Cuba set Willie Tolleson's stomach churning.
Tolleson and Jeff Haught were responsible for getting the replica safely down the Atlantic Coast of Florida, across the Gulf of Mexico and into Galveston Bay by Friday. Tolleson is the rigging and heavy hauling foreman for Computer Science Corp., a National Aeronautics and Space Administration contractor that handles heavy moving. Haught is the Space Center Houston museum's project manager for shuttle relocation.
The barge had to be on its way by noon the day it left or risk getting caught in the storm while rounding the southern tip of Florida.
"We got out by 9 a.m. and they high-tailed it down to Miami," Tolleson said.
He relaxed when the barge entered the Gulf of Mexico.
"I was pretty happy with that and was really watching the weather close," Tolleson said.
Together, they had to plan how to move the 62-ton shuttle replica over land and water.
"It was a big challenge," Tolleson said. "I have a lot of experience moving vessels, but I've never ever moved anything like that down the Atlantic and across the Gulf of Mexico before."
One-hour window
The move had to be planned with precision. The shuttle had to move before the hurricane season, but couldn't move until the site was prepared at the museum.
The arrival must be timed precisely so that the shuttle moves under the Kemah-Seabrook bridge at low tide to ensure clearance for the shuttle and barge. Tolleson said they have a one-hour window.
"It will keep you up at night a little bit," Haught said.
The replica is scheduled to pass under the bridge between 12:30 p.m. and 1:30 p.m. Friday. It will be unloaded Saturday at the NASA Road 1 barge dock between 3 p.m. and 4 p.m.
The shuttle will be moved to the museum Sunday at 5 a.m.
The move Sunday will be the third for the replica. The first move was in November, from the Kennedy Space Center visitor center to the barge dock.
Tolleson said that move was the biggest challenge.
The second biggest challenge will be moving it from the Clear Lake barge dock to the museum, he said.
"They are both hard to do," Tolleson said. "You've got a big item going down the highway."
In Florida, a tug boat specializing in shallow water work moved the barge carrying the replica into the Atlantic. An ocean-going tug took over at sea and will switch with a smaller tug in Galveston Bay. The smaller tug will switch with a pushboat in Clear Lake.
Not much clearance
The shuttle and barge are 67 feet tall from the waterline, allowing an 8-foot clearance under the bridge at low tide, Tolleson said.
Once the replica docks, the nine 4-foot welds holding it to the barge will be cut with grinders. A special 10-foot-wide trailer with 144 tires will move under the replica between jacks holding it above the barge.
The hydraulic bed will move against 15-foot-wide steel beams fastened to the bottom of the replica and raise it 20 inches.
A large truck, called a prime mover, will pull the trailer off the barge, Haught said.
Tolleson said his biggest worry is whether the replica, with 15 feet of clearance below the wings and a 78-foot wingspan, will fit as it moves a little more than a mile along NASA Road 1.
"We have obviously done a lot of measuring along the route," Haught noted. "We have measured, measured and remeasured."
Space shuttle Enterprise ready for river ride to Intrepid museum in NYC
Robert Pearlman - collectSPACE.com
Space shuttle Enterprise, NASA's original prototype orbiter, will hit the road — and water — for a Manhattan museum over the next five days after sitting at a New York airport for the past month.
The shuttle will arrive by barge at the Intrepid Sea, Air and Space Museum on Tuesday, weather permitting, where it is set to go on public display in July.
Enterprise, which did not fly in space but was used for a series of approach and landing tests in the 1970s, was ferried on top of a NASA jumbo jet from the Smithsonian's National Air and Space Museum in Chantilly, Virginia to John F. Kennedy (JFK) International Airport in New York on April 27.
After being lifted off the space agency's modified Boeing 747 aircraft in mid-May, Enterprise was parked under an open-air hangar at the airport to await its river ride to the Intrepid Sea, Air and Space Museum, a converted World War II aircraft carrier, which is berthed on the west side of Manhattan.
Enterprise's wait will come to an end today, as it is rolled on a wheeled transporter from its hangar tent to a near-water location at JFK airport for its loading onto a specially-configured barge on Saturday afternoon. The lift operations are expected to take about three hours.
On Sunday morning, Enterprise, atop the barge, will depart JFK. A tugboat will pull it along the shores of Queens and Brooklyn, passing the Gil Hodges Memorial Bridge by mid-afternoon. The space shuttle-topped barge will then pass Coney Island and go under the Verrazano Bridge before docking at Port Elizabeth in New Jersey for the evening.
On Monday, Enterprise will remain berthed in New Jersey, as preparations continue for its delivery to the Intrepid the next day.
On Tuesday, at 9:15 a.m. EDT (1315 GMT), the barge will depart the Jersey shore to deliver Enterprise to the Intrepid, which is docked at Pier 86 at W. 46th Street and 12th Avenue in New York City.
On its way, the barge is expected to take the shuttle past the Statue of Liberty at about 9:50 a.m. EDT (1350 GMT) and the World Trade Center about 50 minutes later before traveling up the Hudson River to complete its journey by 11:30 a.m. EDT (1530 GMT).
The dates and times of Enterprise's trip up the Hudson are subject to change, as they're based on weather and water conditions.
Once positioned beside the aircraft carrier, Enterprise will be hoisted by crane off the barge and onto the flight deck such that its nose faces the river. The craning operation is expected to take about three hours to complete.
Workers will then begin erecting a climate-controlled steel and fabric structure over Enterprise, to protect it while it is on display. The Intrepid's new "Space Shuttle Pavilion" is scheduled to open to the public on July 19. Tickets for the new display are on sale now through the museum's box office and website.
The Intrepid plans to exhibit Enterprise on its flight deck until a permanent display home can be built. The museum is currently accepting donations and soliciting sponsors to create a facility to showcase the shuttle and enhance its other space-related exhibits and educational curriculum.
In a new space race, the Dragon, and Musk, have landed
Dan Turner - Los Angeles Times (Opinion)
Elon Musk, the billionaire founder of Hawthorne-based Space Exploration Technologies Corp., has been compared to Tony Stark, Marvel Comics' billionaire inventor who dons a high-tech suit of armor to become Iron Man (Musk actually had a cameo in "Iron Man 2," and the SpaceX factory was used as a set for the film). But there's a far less super-powered and slightly less sane figure from real life that he resembles more: Howard Hughes.
Hughes, a visionary who helped build Southern California's aerospace industry from scratch, was a pioneer in an era when entrepreneurs were figuring out how to make air travel, heretofore the province of military air forces, hobbyists and Lindbergh-like daredevils, commercially viable. Musk's SpaceX is doing very much the same thing, only in space. And its remarkable success this week propels SpaceX's place in the public imagination from the company that failed to shoot James "Scotty" Doohan's ashes beyond Earth's orbit into a prime player in the commercial space race, a maker of history and, one can hope, a catalyst for the rebirth of Southern California's once-thriving aerospace industry.
When SpaceX's Dragon capsule splashed down Thursday morning in the Pacific Ocean, it marked the completion of the first privately operated mission to deliver supplies to the International Space Station, a job previously handled by NASA's fleet of now-retired space shuttles. This was more than just a technological feat; it was a political coup for advocates of reducing NASA's role in near-Earth missions so it can concentrate on exploring deeper into space, a proposal resisted not only by members of Congress -- who fear this shift will cost jobs at NASA facilities in their districts -- but by astronauts and other space experts who don't think the private sector is up to the task. SpaceX has just proved them resoundingly wrong.
Pause for a minute to consider how remarkable this accomplishment was. After 17 months of planning, SpaceX launched an unmanned rocket to send the Dragon into space, where it approached the space station -- cruising at 17,500 miles per hour as it orbits the planet -- and, without a pilot, maneuvered close enough to be grabbed by the station's robotic arm. From there, it was up to astronauts on the station to dock the craft and unload its 1,000-pound payload of food, clothing and other supplies. The Dragon deployed its parachutes as it reentered the atmosphere and appears to have made a perfect touchdown.
And all this cost taxpayers a fraction of what it would for NASA to do the job. According to the Wall Street Journal, each shuttle mission cost the agency roughly $1 billion. SpaceX, meanwhile, has a contract with NASA to perform 12 cargo flights (this first one was a test run and doesn't count) to the space station for $1.6 billion -- a savings of $10.4 billion (that's not counting the $400 million or so in seed money that NASA has invested into SpaceX's cargo operations, so we'll make it an even $10 billion).
SpaceX isn't the only player in this game. Boeing Co. is getting into the commercial space business, and Amazon.com founder Jeff Bezos aims to out-Stark Musk by founding his own space start-up, Blue Origin. SpaceX's most serious competitor, meanwhile, is a company in Dulles, Va., calledOrbital Sciences Corp., which also has a big cargo contract with NASA and is testing its own rocket later this year. None of them are as far advanced as SpaceX, though, because their founders didn't start as early as Musk, who was among the first to see the potential of private space operations.
SpaceX, which employs 1,800 people, is located in a Hawthorne factory where Boeing once made fuselages for 747s, signaling a rebirth for an industry devastated by consolidation in the 1990s. The aerospace house that Hughes built is never likely to fully recover, but it's encouraging that California can still attract and nurture visionaries with the means to make their outrageous sci-fi fantasies real.
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