Fwd: SpaceX resupply mission set for flight to space station

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From: "Gary Johnson" <gjohnson144@comcast.net>
Date: April 14, 2014 12:55:34 PM CDT
To: "Gary Johnson" <gjohnson144@comcast.net>
Subject: FW: SpaceX resupply mission set for flight to space station

 

 

 

SpaceX resupply mission set for flight to space station
BY STEPHEN CLARK
SPACEFLIGHT NOW
April 13, 2014

SpaceX's Dragon supply ship is ready for takeoff from Cape Canaveral on Monday to add to the International Space Station's stockpiles of research experiments, crew provisions and gear to continue operating the 450-ton orbiting complex.

The Falcon 9 rocket inside the SpaceX hangar at Cape Canaveral, Fla. Photo credit: SpaceX
 
The commercial cargo craft is scheduled for liftoff at 4:58 p.m. EDT (2058 GMT) Monday from Cape Canaveral's Complex 40 launch pad.

A two-stage Falcon 9 rocket will boost the Dragon spacecraft into a circular 200-mile-high orbit, positioning the automated spaceship for pursuit of the space station culminating in a laser-guided final approach early Wednesday.

Capture of the Dragon capsule with the space station's Canadian-built robotic arm is expected at 7:11 a.m. EDT (1111 GMT) Wednesday. The robot arm will maneuver the spacecraft to an attachment point on the station's Harmony module a few hours later.

The flight is the third operational resupply run to the space station by SpaceX. It comes after two successful cargo missions in October 2012 and March 2013, which kicked off the execution of a $1.6 billion contract with NASA covering 12 logistics deliveries through 2016.

Monday's launch was in doubt this weekend after a computer failure on the space station's central truss segment knocked out redundancy in the control path leading to several key systems, including the outpost's thermal control system, rotary joints to point power-generating solar arrays toward the sun, and the mobile transporter, a rail car designed to move the station's robotic arm along the backbone of the international research complex.

But officials met on Sunday and approved SpaceX's launch to the space station, deferring a spacewalk to swap out the bad computer until later this month.

Mike Suffredini, NASA's space station program manager, said Sunday they devised workarounds to regain the redundancy lost when the computer stopped responding to commands Friday.

Officials weighed the minimized risk with the workarounds with problems that a further delay in the SpaceX launch could pose for the space station, including programmatic concerns with scheduling a busy slate of cargo and crew launches and the potential of dwindling foodstuffs aboard the outpost.

"There's a certain amount of urgency to go ahead and get these vehicles on ISS as soon as we safely can do that," Suffredini said.

The Dragon spacecraft is set to deliver approximately 2.4 tons of cargo the space station, including 3,347 pounds of equipment packed inside the capsule's pressurized cabin.

Technicians on Sunday planned to load nearly 1,000 pounds of time-sensitive items, including refrigerators packed with research samples that could spoil over time.

The Dragon spacecraft launching Monday sports several upgrades over previous SpaceX cargo vehicles, nearly quadrupling the ship's capacity for powered cargo. The modifications include additional freezers for biological samples and redesigned cargo racks to accommodate additional payloads, according to SpaceX.

The mission is also taking up research experiments in the Dragon's unpressurized trunk for the first time.

The payload packages will be removed from the trunk using the space station's Canadian robotic arm and Dextre robot, a two-armed device fitted with grippers and a toolkit for handyman work outside the complex.

NASA's Optical Payload for Lasercomm Science, or OPALS, will demonstrate a laser communications link between the space station and a ground antenna in Wrightwood, Calif. OPALS will test uplink and downlink capability through an optical beacon as the space station passes over the Wrightwood antenna, with each communications session expected to last about 100 seconds.

Optical communications systems offer higher data transfer rates than achievable through conventional radio systems. OPALS is expected to run its experiments over a 90-day period while attached to a logistics carrier on the space station's truss.

File photo of a Dragon spacecraft arriving at the International Space Station. Photo credit: NASA
 
"OPALS represents a tangible stepping stone for laser communications, and the International Space Station is a great platform for an experiment like this," said Michael Kokorowski, OPALS project manager at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory. "Future operational laser communication systems will have the ability to transmit more data from spacecraft down to the ground than they currently do, mitigating a significant bottleneck for scientific investigations and commercial ventures."

The High-Definition Earth Viewing camera suite will also launch inside the Dragon spacecraft and will be hosted on a platform on the exterior of the European Space Agency's Columbus laboratory module.

Developed by engineers at the Johnson Space Center in Houston, the HDEV system includes four commercially available high-definition video cameras that will stream live video of Earth for online viewing, according to a NASA fact sheet.

The experiment will help NASA determine what cameras work best in the harsh environment of space.

The optical communications and high-definition video systems are the first large unpressurized NASA experiments assigned for delivery to the space station by SpaceX.

Astronauts will manually remove items stowed inside the Dragon spacecraft's internal section, including 1,576 pounds of science and research gear, 1,049 pounds of crew provisions, 449 pounds of vehicle hardware, and 271 pounds of spacewalk tools.

The Dragon will arrive with a fresh spacesuit for the space station's six-person crew, a space age garden to demonstrate vegetable growth in microgravity, and legs for Robonaut 2, a humanoid robot launched on a 2011 space shuttle mission.

Suffredini said officials decided Saturday to add one more item to Dragon's payload manifest. A new gasket-like material was flown to Cape Canaveral to help astronauts when they mount a spacewalk later this month to replace the failed computer that threatened to delay the SpaceX resupply flight.

The Dragon spacecraft is expected to remain attached to the space station until May, when it will be released by the robotic arm and return to Earth with a parachute-assisted splashdown in the Pacific Ocean off the coast of Baja California.

  

© 2014 Spaceflight Now Inc.

 

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SpaceX to Attempt Daring Reusable Rocket Test During Dragon Launch Today

By Tariq Malik, Managing Editor   |   April 14, 2014 07:00am ET

 

A close-up look at the landing legs on a private SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket launching from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, Fla., on April 14, 2014. The Falcon 9 rocket will launch a Dragon cargo ship to the International Space Station, then attempt to return its first stage to Earth in a reusable rocket technology demonstration. Credit: SpaceX View full size image

It's an audacious plan, the odds of success are low, but SpaceX is going to do it anyway: The private spaceflight company founded by billionaire Elon Musk will launch a rocket with landing legs into orbit today, then try to bring part of it back and park it in the ocean.

The chances of success? Maybe between 30 and 40 percent, said SpaceX vice president of mission assurance Hans Koenigsmann.

"If we can pull this off…we'll be super-thrilled," Koenigsmann told reporters yesterday (April 13). You can watch the SpaceX's Dragon launch live on Space.com, courtesy of NASA TV. The webcast will begin Monday at 3:45 p.m. EDT (1945 GMT).  [See photos of SpaceX's Falcon 9 and Dragon mission]

Falcon 9 in SpaceX's hangar at Cape Canaveral. Image released March 11, 2014.
Credit: SpaceX

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Ambitious test flight

SpaceX's ambitious reusable rocket test is only a secondary goal for the company today, but if successful it could lead to rocket innovations that could dramatically reduce the cost of space travel. The Hawthorne, Calif.-based company plans to launch its upgraded Falcon 9 rocket into orbit from a pad at Florida's Cape Canaveral Air Force Station at 4:58 p.m. EDT (2058 GMT). The main mission: To launch a robotic Dragon space capsule on SpaceX's third delivery flight for NASA as part of a $1.6 billion resupply contract.

But even as SpaceX prepared its Dragon cargo ship for launch, the company was working behind the scenes to take advantage of the flight for its internal reusable rocket program. The Falcon 9 rocket launching today has a first stage equipped with four large landing legs, each one of them 25 feet (7.6 meters) long.

A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket and Dragon cargo ship stand atop its Florida launch pad ahead of a planned April 14, 2014 launch to the International Space Station. The mission for NASA will launch from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station.
Credit: NASA TV

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If all goes well, the Falcon 9 rocket's first stage will separate as planned during launch, then perform a long re-entry engine burn to slow its supersonic descent back to Earth. SpaceX officials hope the rocket stage will deploy the legs as it descends and perform a final landing maneuver just over the ocean's surface before toppling over into the water to be retrieved by a recovery team.

"The entire recovery of the first stage is entirely experimental," Koenigsmann said. "It has nothing to do with the primary mission here."

  Today's mission will mark the third of 12 planned SpaceX Dragon cargo missions to the International Space Station for NASA. SpaceX launched the first flight in 2012, with a second following in 2013.

Last September, SpaceX also successfully demonstrated the ability to relight a Falcon 9 booster's first stage and slow its descent back to Earth. Today's planned reusable rocket test will attempt to take that demonstration a step further.

"We've been doing improvements to the recovery of the first stage in little steps, being very careful it doesn't affect the performance of Dragon," Koenigsmann said.

NASA space station program manager Mike Suffredini told reporters Sunday that once he was convinced SpaceX's Falcon 9 landing legs posed no threat to Dragon's cargo delivery to the station, he was eager to see how the test would unfold today.

The DC-X (Delta Clipper Experimental) was a prototype for a reusable space launch vehicle tested in the 1990s. See how reusable launch systems can work in this full infographic.
Credit: by Karl Tate, Infographics Artist

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SpaceX's road to reusability

Developing a completely reusable rocket technology has been a long-range goal for SpaceX CEO Elon Musk as a way to reduce the cost of spaceflight. In 2011, Musk unveiled an ambitious plan for reusable rockets that envisioned SpaceX booster stages capable of flying back to landing pads on their own, as well as Dragon space capsules with the ability to touch down on land. (SpaceX Dragons currently splash down in the ocean).

Reusable rockets could substantially cut the costs of spaceflight, according to Musk. SpaceX's standard Falcon 9 rocket launches cost between $50 million and $60 million, according to the company's website. [Reusable Rockets: How They Work (Infographic)]

"But the cost of the fuel and oxygen and so forth is only about $200,000," Musk said in 2011 when he first unveiled SpaceX's reusable rocket program. "So obviously, if we can reuse the rocket, say, a thousand times, then that would make the capital cost of the rocket for launch only about $50,000."

SpaceX is still a ways off from returning a Falcon 9 rocket to a landing pad on dry land. In March, Musk wrote in a Twitter post that the company will aiming for water splashdowns until it can master the challenges of returning a rocket booster to Earth safely.

To that end, SpaceX has conducted a series of vertical launch and landing tests of its Grasshopper reusable rocket prototype, sending on ever-higher flights over the company's proving grounds in McGregor, Texas. Those tests concluded in December.

 

More test flights planned

On March 28 of this year, SpaceX test fired its first F9R reusable rocket, a larger vehicle to continue reusable rocket research where the Grasshopper flights left off. Those test flights will eventually be launched from Spaceport America in New Mexico, SpaceX officials have said.

"The F9R testing program is the next step towards reusability following completion of the Grasshopper program last year," SpaceX officials wrote in a video description of the F9R static engine test. "F9R test flights in New Mexico will allow us to test at higher altitudes than we are permitted for at our test site in Texas, to do more with unpowered guidance and to prove out landing cases that are more-flight like."

Koenigsmann said SpaceX will take a step-by-step approach to its reusable rocket demonstrations with actual Falcon 9 rockets. While the company aims to make a land landing by the end of 2014, each test will be dependent on the success and lessons from the previous flight. In the meantime, SpaceX is scouting for possible rocket landing zones.

"That's currently in evaluation," Koenigsmann said. "We're looking at different landing sites."

 

 

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