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At Long Last, a Private Cargo Spaceship Takes Off (Video)
Tuesday morning at 0344, right on schedule (and it had to be right on schedule), Elon Musk's baby finally left the launch pad on its way to the International Space Station (ISS). Two babies, actually: the Falcon 9 launch vehicle is what we watched as it took off from Cape Canaveral -- the first private spaceship headed for the ISS -- with the Dragon spacecraft perched on its nose. The Dragon carried over 1000 pounds of supplies and experiments for the ISS. The launch went off without a hitch. But don't stop holding your breath quite yet; Dragon isn't scheduled to dock at the ISS until Friday.
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After watching both this and Copenhagen Suborbital's launch, I noticed that the rockets seem to "pop" at a few Hz. I don't recall hearing this on NASA launches, does anyone know why this is?
Scotty is on board.
A commenter on NPR today made an interesting point. There is a lot of talk about "first private..." but NASA has relied heavily on private industry since the beginning. Lockheed Martin, Morton Thaikol, Boeing, Northrup Grumman, Raytheon, Rockwell Colllins, Teledyne, Honeywell, Kodak, Perkin-Elmer.........
And Falcon launched from a government built/owned/maintained launch-site.
What *is* different is the accounting. Instead of a bevy of cost-plus contracts there is now a single-point fixed-cost provider which, surprise surprise, seems to be able to deliver at a much lower cost/kg.
And no, this does not detract from their accomplishment. Getting to space is still difficult and risky. Congratulations to everyone involved regardless of who writes their paychecks.
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"You are not remembered for doing what is expected of you." - Atul Chitnis
Not bad. That's the way to do video.
For the minority of /. readers who care about the details, I highly recommend downloading the COTS 2 Press Kit from SpaceX.
It provides tons of details and graphics describing the mission objectives, schedule, cargo manifest, vehicle specs, and much more...
http://www.spacex.com/downloads/COTS-2-Press-Kit-5-14-12.pdf
(I am not affiliated with SpaceX, but I like what they are doing)
From a layman's perspective, I'm confused as to why it takes so long to get to LEO? How fast does this compare with the space shuttle? Why does it take so long to dock?
It's not McDonald's. You don't just drive up to it. Like a beautiful woman, you have to chase it... No, I didn't really say that.
Basically, they're taking their time checking systems out. They are doing a close approach pass to ensure that the communications and control links work before taking it in close. A Soyuz capsule has already crash-parked into the ISS with much consternation and concern. They're just being really, really careful.
Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
It only takes about 10 minutes to get to orbit. I believe the Shuttle and the Progress & Soyuz spacecraft all took about 2 days to dock with ISS. I believe most of that time is spent matching the orbits perfectly and "catching up" with it in orbit (you don't want to approach too fast and slowing down requires fuel, and fuel is weight so you want to use as little as feasible).
Dragon is taking awhile longer because this is only the second time that the Dragon has flown and the first time docking. So, they're going to run a whole bunch of tests to ensure that they can control the spacecraft from the ground and then a bunch more to make sure the astronauts on the ISS can control it. Then, finally, they'll let it get close enough to dock. I suspect (though I have no actual information on this) that once they get past the "test flight" phase, it will take a similar amount to time to Soyuz/Progress/Shuttle to get there.
Go Badgers! -- #include "std/disclaimer.h"
I know you think you'e being clever, but the fact is that NASA worked very hard to prevent any private development of space flight capabilities for several decades.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
If it had been left to the private sector, we'd wouldn't have got to the moon, mars, the heliosheath. And despite the fact that earth orbit is profitable, probably no private sector project would have made the investment or taken the risk to go to space at all.
Space X can only do what it's doing now because it's standing on the shoulders of previous public sector projects. And heck this very project is being paid for by the public sector.
Dragon isn't scheduled to dock at the ISS until Friday.
The Dragon isn't capable of docking, it has to be grappled by the station's robotic arm and berthed to a common berthing port. It is scheduled to receive an upgrade that enables it to use docking ports in the future, but on this flight, it's berthing, not docking.