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SpaceX Dragon Set To Launch
SpaceX's first regular launch to the International Space Station is set to go off at 8:35 (Eastern time) Sunday evening; the first SpaceX launch to successfully reach the ISS was more of a test, though it did bring some goodies to the crew. Wired has a live video feed in place. Slashdot reader Lee Sheridan is in Florida for the launch; if you're one of the billion Facebook users, his photos of the mission briefing and Falcon 9 lift vehicle being lifted to vertical are public. The SpaceX twitter feed might be fun to watch, too. Update: 10/08 00:09 GMT by T : Bonus points for intelligent parsing of the acronym-laden communications on the live feed.
Slashdot... It's the website I watch like a hawk, so that I can find out about live events, 5 minutes before they happen (if I'm really, really lucky).
Slashdot gets worse every day... Pipedot: News for nerds, without the corporate slant
http://www.nasa.gov/multimedia/nasatv/index.html
so no adverts and crap
There's a pretty decent feed on http://live.twit.tv/ with Andrew Mayne and Molly Wood on-site for the launch, right now.
I'm not particular excited about this, but whatever. Wake me up when something epic like the moon missions of 69-72 happen. I won't hold my breath in my life-time.
One minute to go, nerds onscreen. W. T. F.
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
One thing that strikes me is how modern technology has simplified so many things. Mission control is so much simpler and streamlined - just flat screen monitors on tables. Much cleaner. Even the launch system, using a static support tower angled away from the rocket, appears (at least to my untrained eye) much simpler these days than the mechanized support systems that had to release or pull away from the rockets.
Launch looks perfect so far. Second stage just ignited.
Better known as 318230.
It's in orbit. No apparent problems so far.
Well, title says it all. Any news about the orbcomm satellite being properly deployed?
News for nerds uses 12 hr time.
Film at 23
Thanks for the link Timothy, but I'm pretty sure my crappy iPhone pictures are far superseded by those done by the official photographers. :)
But yeah, this was a BEAUTIFUL launch.
If you missed it, you can watch the recording at http://www.spacex.com/webcast/, which in my opinion, was the best way of viewing it live.
i watched the launch, and on the closeup view of the engines from spacex, one of those engines definitely went pop at 1:20 into the flight. you can see the debris coming off. its unmistakable. i guess its a testament to the value of having the ability to sustain a engine failure and still get into orbit.
Do the simple math:
SpaceX is being paid by NASA $1,600,000,000 to launch 12 vehicles to the International Space Station, each of which carries 2,000lbs of cargo. Total contract pays them $1,600,000,000 to carry 24,000lbs of cargo to the International Space Station. The Space Shuttle carried 28,000lbs to the International Space Station for about $400 million per launch.
We could have flown the shuttle once a year for 1/4th the cost, gotten more payload to orbit, and have gotten crew to the ISS. For 1/2 the cost, we could have rotated ISS crew every six months and taken 2x the amount of payload to the space station. We should have continued work on the Crew Return Vehicle, and we should have gotten Ares-I working and under control.
The current path that we are on is total bullshit.
Sig: I stole this sig.
"Tomorrow's planned flight is to be the first under a $1.6 billion contract with NASA that calls for a dozen resupply flights by SpaceX, essential in the post-shuttle era". link
I find it hard to believe that NASA isn't capable of designing and lauching its own launch vehicle.
AccountKiller
when did the US government buy Iridium, SES, and Intelsat? And then, of course, when did the US government annex Thailand since Thaicom has signed a contract with SpaceX to launch Thaicom 6 next year. I won't even mention the contracts with Asia Broadcast Systems and Satmex since those are obviously US government affiliated.
SpaceX does not mine ore or harvest gasses. And it never will. They are a rocket company not a mining company. If you have a problem with mining companies that don't want to move into space I suggest you go troll their message boards. SpaceX can get your shit in space. It doesn't operate it, finance it, or dictate to the customer what to do. SpaceX isn't NASA so don't bash them for not having as ambitious goals as NASA does.
Space-X has launched one commercial satellite so far, and has at least 5 more launches scheduled for 2013.
spacex interjected itself into the US space program, by being damn good at what they do, for a fraction of the cost of a NASA developed launch vehicle. theres a lot to be said for having a launch vehicle being developed with the design decisions being free of political influence, and having most of the parts of your spacecraft developed under one roof, and not in many different senators districts around the country, in a myriad of porkbarrel projects. a specific example would be solid rocket boosters that were shoehorned onto the space shuttle, the now defunct ares, and the in development Space Launch System. this is to appease the senator for the state of Utah, and the contractor ATK in his state, who also make solid rockets for the military, for missiles and the like. the problem is, once you light solid rockets, you cant turn them off, and if they fail, they usually go boom, and take the rest of your launch vehicle with them. this is what happened in the 86 challenger shuttle disaster. in contrast, if liquid rockets engines fail, its usually a non-catastrophic failure and the fuel valves close. and if you have multiple engines, they can compensate for the lost engine by burning for longer, if you design your rocket for that. which the falcon 9 is. the fact is, you are ill informed, and wrong, spacex has multiple commercial clients, and in fact has a commercial satellite hitching a ride along with the NASA resupply mission on this very flight. sir, you need to GET SOME KNOWLEDGE ALL UP IN YO FACE. WHHHAAAAA.
The first commercially contracted re-supply mission to the International Space Station (ISS) has lifted off. A Falcon rocket carrying a Dragon cargo capsule lifted clear of Cape Canaveral in Florida at 20:35 (00:35 GMT). The robotic Dragon ship will deliver 400kg of food, clothing, experiments and spares to the orbiting platform's six astronauts. It is the maiden flight in a sequence of 12 missions that California's SpaceX company is performing for Nasa. The US space agency is looking to the private sector to assume routine transport duties to and from low-Earth orbit. It has given SpaceX a $1.6bn contract to keep the ISS stocked up with essentials, restoring a re-supply capability that the US lost when it retired the shuttles last year.h
this is what happened in the 86 challenger shuttle disaster.
Well, no, not quite. In the challenger disaster, the O-Rings that seal the booster sections suffered a blow through, which cut into the main tanks for the liquid rockets, causing those to explode. After the main tank exploded, the solids continued to fly on for a few seconds until the range safety officer issued a destruct command, causing the two SRBs to explode as designed.
The flip side to using solids for space flight is they very much follow the KISS principle. They are relatively simple devices. As long as you have your materials science right, you light them and they will go. There are no turbo-pumps to fail, no presurization lines that might burst, etc etc etc.
There is a reason why the LES on Apollo and Mercury, as well as your typical ejection seat, and hell your car's air bags, are all based on what is, or is effectively, a solid rocket. They're damned reliable.
...si hoc legere nimium eruditionis habes...
when did the US government buy Iridium, SES, and Intelsat? And then, of course, when did the US government annex Thailand since Thaicom has signed a contract with SpaceX to launch Thaicom 6 next year. I won't even mention the contracts with Asia Broadcast Systems and Satmex since those are obviously US government affiliated.
Well, in the case of Iridium, when the constellation was in danger of being de-orbited, the DoD gave the trustee a sweetheart contract in order to keep the constellation in orbit.
...si hoc legere nimium eruditionis habes...
The current NASA plan the Senate Launch System is a congressional mandate not to cut their inefficient pork barrel projects.
Follow the logic. We decided to shutdown the shuttle program because the shuttle was to costly to operate. Congress mandated that the shuttles successor use as many shuttle derived parts as possible. The Congress again mandated that as much as possible of their shuttle replacement be saved.
NASA may be capable of designing a launch vehicle, but not an affordable one, especially not with congress refusing to let go of the pork.
$1.6 billion is lowest bidder, how much of that goes on revenue for the company ...
AccountKiller
You are advertizing your ignorance
1. Solid rockets were not selected for the shuttle based on political influence; They were the cheapest way to put a huge amount of thrust into the system while it was at low altitudes where the SSME's which burned LOX and LH2 are sub-optimal performers. The Nixon admin was simply unwilling to pay for the up-front costs to develop a fully-reusable system of a shuttle orbiter and a re-usable flyback liquid-fueled 1st stage... and a liquid-fueled 1st stage with the same sea-level performance of a couple of SRBs (enough to launch an airliner-sized space plane instead of a small capsule) was going to be so expensive you would not want to throw it away. The shuttle needed the LOX/LH2 for high-performance in the latter half of the climb to orbit. (note that the old Saturn V used LOX/RP-1 in the S-IC first stage, and LOX/LH2 on the S-II second and S-IVB third stages)
2. In the entire history of NASA nobody has ever had a scenario where there was a need to shut down a solid rocket with the exception of Challenger... which would never have happened if NASA had not flown the mission on a day when weather conditions were outside the design limits of the system.
3. The solids on Challenger did not explode until a range safety officer ordered them to, many seconds after they were both flying free and clear of the debris cloud. One of the booster performed perfectly though the entire flight. The other booster developed a gap in one of the field joints which allowed hot combustion gasses out through the side. The jet of hot exhaust acted like a blowtorch that essentially simultaneously burned through a spot on the lower part of the external tank and also caused the lower SRB attach mechanism to fail. The damage to the tank caused the bottom of the tank to fail and dump its contents out the bottom (seen on film as a huge white LH2 cloud), while the attach point failure allowed the SRB to pivot about the still-intact top attach point... so the nose of the SRB collided with the upper part of the tank. Through the entire incident, including the detonation of the ET contents, the break-up of the orbiter, the detonation of all the propellants from the orbiter's RCS and OMS tanks (visible as puffs of reddish-brown smoke), and all the flying debris... neither SRB exploded, and in fact the unburdened SRBs flew far better than anybody had predicted they would (there had been studies of the aerodynamic characteristics of individual SRBs as part of the overall system analysis back during the development period).
4. The congressional desire to use SRBs on constellation and later on the SLS has less to do with one or two Utah senators and far more to do with the following: [a] The same industrial base that makes them also makes other solids for the military (like our ICBMs) so if NASA does not use them then the overhead shifts to the pentagon and the defense budget must go up...so we don't save a lot by not using them for NASA [b] they have a demonstrated safety record of hundreds of safe and successful flights (2 solids flew per shuttle mission) which is a better-established flight record than even the mighty Saturn V (which only flew 13 times, 10 of which with humans) [c] the desire to fly sooner rather than later (nobody currently makes a big powerful 1st stage motor like the F-1 anymore) but the team at ATK that makes the solids and their facility, tools, plans, and supply chain currently exist)
It does not matter how much you think you know... what matters is the what is really true.
Does it burn Senators as fuel, or just throw the whole lot of them into orbit? I'm fine with either approach, but inquiring minds want to know!
we have intentionally interjected a middle man into the US space program for no apparent reason.
Well, you know, except for Shuttle failures accounting for 78% of all people who have ever died on space flights, and 100% of such fatalities in the last 40 years. And the repeatedly proven inability of NASA to design and build a replacement for the Shuttle.
SpaceX does not launch commercial satellites
They don't? So, in what category, exactly, do you put the Orbcomm, Inc.satellite that was part of the payload of this very rocket?
What no pizza in thirty minutes or less? That is a real winner. Don't waste your time with Tesla just focus on good deliveries Elon.
yes we might quibble on the precise definition of 'explode', but the fundamental problem with solid rockets is the reactants that burn are right beside each other in a solid motor, and if it fails, theres no way to shut it down, and its failure mode is highly likely to take the rest of the rocket with it, either by rapid unscheduled disassembly, or a pillar of flame torching parts of the rocket.
and as for the safety record of the saturn V vs the shuttle, just because the saturn V didnt have the opportunity to rack up the number of flights the shuttle did dosent make it less reliable, indeed, the saturn V has a perfect mission record, despite losing a engine on the apollo 13 launch. such is the benefit of more benign failure modes in liquid rockets.
and as to your point in (2), thats like saying that there has never been a scenario like that except for that one time when it killed 7 astronauts but lets ignore that one because NASA forgot how delicate the solids are. oh, and saving the military money by making the shuttle design less reliable with tacked on solid boosters to prop up ICBM manufacturers sure sounds like a design compromise for political considerations to me.
while im sure the argument that using parts from a established industrial base to save money in building a new rocket sounds nice, in practice using those parts necessitate a design similar to that which came before, with its design flaws and comprimises and resultant high costs. what needs to happen is a clean sheet design, to learn from the mistakes of the previous generation, and thats what spacex is doing, while NASA is taking bits from the previous generation, and not learning the lessons.
Just out of curiosity why exactly does it take till Wednesday to reach the ISS. Isn't that thing nearby?
I kind wondered why SpaceX started building their own turbo pumps for the Merlin 1D engine - it doesn't just seem to be a matter of performance, but also of quality assurance. It seems like SpaceX has found itself a nice opportunity to review their QA process, while proving that their engine out capability isn't just theoretical.
That said, I wouldn't expect the next launch to happen on time.
Sure, if you selectively ignore the second half of the sentence, and artificially narrow the comparison to only Soyuz, you can pretend the first half is deceptive.
But, since you so strongly object to number of people killed, let's instead count merely by number of fatal in-flight failures. The Shuttle has had 50% of all fatal in-flight failures in the history of spaceflight, and 100% of all fatal in-flight failures in the last forty years.