Slashdot Mirror
SpaceX's Falcon 9 Successfully Reaches Orbit
terrymaster69 writes "After an aborted launch attempt last week, SpaceX successfully launched its Falcon9 rocket Tuesday at 3:44 am EST. SpaceX's founder Elon Musk tweeted: 'Falcon flew perfectly!! Dragon in orbit, comm locked and solar arrays active!! Feels like a giant weight just came off my back :)' The Dragon capsule is scheduled to dock with the ISS on May 25th."
SpaceX Launches Private Capsule on Historic Trip to Space Station
And don't forget the Space Launch System (SLS), which is the next iteration of (government operated) US human spaceflight.
A HD video of the launch: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DQNJG8MPcIc :-) in this one there's even a camera to watch the solar array deploying in orbit.
SpaceX always releases amazing videos of their launch
I love America (even though I am not American). Few countries *even have* a space-reaching rocket, while in the US multiple *private companies* have it.
That's an interesting idea, but there is no need for it. Once a Soyuz is up, it doesn't cost any more to get down. Even the custom-fitted Soyuz seat is needed for the ride up. One of the rules on ISS is that every crew member has to have a seat on an escape vehicle, so the Soyuz that they rode up on stays docked. Even crew that was brought up on Shuttle and left behind on ISS had a Soyuz seat ready, because the shuttle took someone else back to free up that seat. And there's no other way up right now, so everybody has a Soyuz seat ready.
On the other hand, this will mean that we will now have a decent downmass capability. Soyuz had very limited downmass, and theoretically you could put cargo return capability on a Progress, but nobody did it, because it was cheaper to just let the "trash" burn up. Now they can afford to return stuff that wasn't worth returning before, allowing more reuse and analysis of what had to be classified as "trash" before.
In the end, the one thing the Shuttle could do that Crew Dragon or Falcon Heavy won't ever be able to do is return full-size modules. It will only be able to return what you can stuff through the hatch, but that's not too bad of a limitation.
#naabhaprzrag, #sverubfr-000, #agi-fcbafberq, negvpyr[pynff*=' negvpyr-ary-'] { qvfcynl: abar !vzcbegnag; }
Well, one reason is that matcing orbit quickly requires more deltaV than they're willing or able to spend.
"I do not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it"
Ironically, his family came from America. He's named after his grandfather Elon, who lived in Minnesota.
XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve your problem, you're not using enough of it. --AC
As for private rockets, as the other poster said, all rockets have always been developed under contract with NASA by private companies.
Just as a clarification, the Ariane rockets in Europe are arguably the most successful rockets, launching almost half of all the commercial satellites. These have been developed by a private company, EADS Astrium (a subsidiary of EADS, a big aerospace and defence contractor) since the 1980s and produced/operated by another private company, Arianespace. The latter appears to be jointly controlled (in terms of shares) by EADS and the French space agency, CNES, so it might be considered as semi-private, but EADS is certainly a public company.
Read this page on the SpaceX site, especially this part:
As noted last month by a Chinese government official, SpaceX currently has the best launch prices in the world and they don’t believe they can beat them. This is a clear case of American innovation trumping lower overseas labor rates.
and this part:
If there are cost overruns, SpaceX will cover the difference. (This concept may be foreign to some traditional government space contractors that seem to believe that cost overruns should be the responsibility of the taxpayer.)
The business-as-usual approach where the government hands NASA gobs of money so that NASA can in turn pay Boeing all the money they ask for is affected by SpaceX. It is my hope (and Musk's stated goal) to maintain low fixed costs for launches. If SpaceX delivers on this promise, that will mean that we can still maintain a presence in space for less money. Another thing to note: SpaceX is in California. I'd be willing to bet that Florida and Texas republicans will still want their pork projects for all the aerospace companies working out of Texas and Florida. Also, there's always the sacred cow of defense spending. Remember the X37-B? I'd be willing to bet more money gets spent on that in the future.
Apollo, at its very peak (in terms of cost) in 1968, cost 4.8% of the US government budget. Which itself is only a fraction of the US GDP.
They did launch directly to the ISS, but they will keep their distance for a while. The three day delay is not so it can catch up to the ISS, but so that they can do lots of testing and checklists before they're allowed to actually approach the station. There are a ton of firsts happening on this mission, and everything needs to be checked out before they dock. Once they start that process, they'll get a bit closer, do some testing, get a bit closer, do some more testing, get a bit closer, do some more testing, etc. The mission checklist is pretty extensive, in terms of "approach to X metres, get go/no-go, approach to Y metres, get go/no-go, approach to Z metres, get go/no-go, etc"
Another thing to note: SpaceX is in California. I'd be willing to bet that Florida and Texas republicans will still want their pork projects for all the aerospace companies working out of Texas and Florida.
Not to defend pork spending, but Florida does have one huge advantage over California: it's the most south-eastern point in the US, and launching eastward from there gives any craft a free speed boost going into orbit. Any eastern state could do the same, but the further south you are, the more orbit options you have. I don't know where SpaceX's rocket parts are made (is it actually California, or is that just their HQ?), but obviously the further away this is from the launch site, the more costly the transportation.
There's no technical reason you couldn't launch eastward from California, except you'd be launching over land, and populated areas. For jettisoning booster stages (or falling debris from a failed launch), this is a bad idea.
You make good points. Yes 28.5 degrees North and launching eastward gives a substantial boost to any rockets launched and so Florida and/or Texas will likely stay in the picture as launching point. I'd be willing to bet that NASA gave SpaceX the equivalent of free rent at the launch facilities (which are probably maintained by other contractors on NASA's behalf). The SpaceX information on the Falcon Heavy all list an 'inclination' of 28.5 degrees so I am guessing the assumption is all launches will happen from Kennedy in FL.
I watched a video on Elon Musk which stated that raw materials come in to the factory in Hawthorne, CA and rocket parts come out the other side. I believe most of their 1500+ employees are in CA (awesome vid of them cheering the launch here). Hawthorne is about a mile from LAX and they can probably just take the parts over to LAX and put them on a big transport and fly them. I'd be willing to bet that transport costs are but a tiny tiny fraction of the human resource cost of the project. Los Angeles has tremendous assets for this sort of work -- there's a hi-tech corridor around Glendale/Burbank with all kinds of operations. There's an enormous talent pool of skilled workers, access to sea, air, and land shipping, etc. Boeing's a little different but most of their employees are on the West Coast. Lockheed also has a lot of facilities in Cailfornia. As does Raytheon. If you want to hire talented and experienced engineers and rocket scientists (and support staff), there are a ton of them around Los Angeles.