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ISS Robotic Arm Captures Dragon Capsule
puddingebola writes "From the aricle, 'The SpaceX Dragon capsule has been successfully grabbed by the International Space Station, marking the first time a private American space flight has run a supply mission to the orbiting platform. The crew of the ISS snatched Dragon out of orbit ahead of schedule, using the space station's robotic arm to guide the capsule in after its careful approach.' NASA has also posted video of the docking."
Isn't this the second time that the dragon module has docked with the ISS?
because the ISS does not accept PayPal
-badford
http://www.nasa.gov/multimedia/nasatv/index.html
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-wcknJwgzh4
While it's most convenient to have superpower governments concentrate wealth and use their military research to make space exploration possible, humanity's need for space exploration interprets a lack of funding as an obstacle and routes around it.
The real challenge now is finding a profit model. For the time being, space flight will be used to ferry celebrities into outer orbit, but in the future, our species will need to discover either outright profit or some way to subsidize the exploration of space itself.
I mean, it's great to think we could soon have flights to the moon, but what about more missions to Mars, and beyond?
I don't have time to read all the details, but I don't think we should be messing with any dragons.
I've read enough books to know it usually doesn't end well.
You are welcome on my lawn.
Anyone else think that the reason they got it done so fast was the little freezer full of ice cream on board?
SpaceX's explicit goal is to get to Mars, and to do that, they're making it a paying proposition at almost every step of the way.
-- Two men say they're Jesus. One of them must be wrong. - Dire Straits
You do realise the dragon capsule is owned by private company? Nothing to do with government or military
Right, in May they demonstrated docking to the Space Station, but it wasn't a supply mission, it was a launch and docking demonstration flight. That first flight did carry some miscellaneous stuff and some student experiments, but it wasn't carrying supplies critical to station operation.
As the summary says, this was the first actual contracted supply mission.
http://www.geoffreylandis.com
How about we try to achieve great things for the sake of humankind?
I know, not realistically going to happen any time soon. But plenty sci-fi author is able to think up societies where this is possible (e.g. star trek). Sure most had problems of their own, hence the stories, but I find it sad most just assume that nothing better than this capitalist system is possible.
The issue is energy. Energy (required to reach orbit) is too expensive. The next human revolution will be free (or remarkably cheap) energy. Tesla claimed to have devised a way to capture the energy from the ionosphere. Consider a single lightning strike has enough power to run a 100 watt bulb for 2 months. There's also some promise in the solar and wind energy areas. There's insane amounts of energy all around us. Capturing a fraction of it (cheaply) will change our lives in unimaginable ways and make things like space travel for the common man possible.
interprets a lack of funding as an obstacle and routes around it
That reminds me, is there a Slashdot drinking game? Or Slashdot Buzzword Bingo?
But plenty sci-fi author is able to think up societies where this is possible
You seem to be confusing fiction with reality. (That's usually described as a mental illness.)
"I don't know, therefore Aliens" Wafflebox1
During the ascent the Falcon 9 lost an engine. Apparently a single engine fault is something that the Falcon 9 is designed for and can continue the mission on 8 engines.
I am not interested in articles about life extension advancements.
Is this spacecraft going to be docking automatically in the future? Something that the early soyuz (read ~1970) already did.
Best
-S
1) This is the first 'official' supply mission. There was a test mission earlier this year.
2) It is the other ENGINGES that were commanded by the onboard computer to correct. There was only one rocket involved in all of this.
3) Spacex explicitly stated that there was no explosion. Opinions as to what really happened differ, but Spacex has never reported any sort of explosion - not even a tiny little one.
4) The Orbcomm satellite did get deployed, just not in the right orbit.
At least they got right that:
1) There was a launch.
2) Something went wrong.
3) The rocket (or whatever) corrected.
4) Dragon was placed into the right orbit.
5) Something went into the wrong orbit.
I know that most journalists are completely incompetent, but this is ridiculous.
So on that subject, did these guys get paid this time?
I'm curious what they charged NASA, what they actually spent on this launch (not R&D costs to get here, just costs to build, fuel and launch).
It would be interesting to see if this is cheaper for NASA, and actually profitable for SpaceX, or if it's really just creative accounting making it look good.
(Yes I could probably Google what NASA is paying, but the real costs for SpaceX are a bit beyond a simple search)
You do realise the dragon capsule is owned by private company? Nothing to do with government or military
You do realize that the development cost of the Dragon-9 launch vehicle and the cargo transport capsule was paid for by NASA? This is hardly "nothing to do with government."
(The small rocket (Falcon 1) was privately financed.)
http://www.geoffreylandis.com
The issue is energy. Energy (required to reach orbit) is too expensive.
The actual energy cost of getting to orbit is quite low-- about 30 MJ/kg; that would cost well under a dollar a kilogram at today's electrical prices.
The problem is that exponential in the rocket equation (along with the fact that you can't pause halfway).
http://www.geoffreylandis.com
A single lightning strike has about 5 billion joules of energy or enough to run an entire household for a month not just one bulb.
Elon Musk is making a big deal about the fact that the majority of his flight manifest for the future is for non-government commercial payloads. One of the reasons why the Orbcomm satellite was a big deal is in part that SpaceX needs to go through that backlog of payloads and get stuff into space.
That the satellite didn't get to where it was supposed to be at was a huge blow, but it is the kind of thing that SpaceX will be doing more of in the future.
The real challenge now is finding a profit model
There will never be a profit model for exploration - Or, if there is one, the profits will be so many generations into the future to make it not worthwhile calculating (mining unobtainium on asteroids or on Pandora 300 years from now). Will there be profit in space travel one day? Sure - But not exploration.
Nothing to do with government or military
So who wrote the cheque to pay for their delivery to the ISS? The Coca-Cola company?
Great, but they've had 1 engine out in 2 launches. It's fantastic that they have demonstrated that redundancy but at this point in time it's a terrible demonstration of reliability. If we extrapolate a bit (and I'm not a great statistics guy) they should be expecting a dual engine failure about 1/4 of launches and a triple failure probably around 1/10 launches. I doubt they can cope with that.
;-)
Let's hope they find a cause (or strong suspect) and correct it, followed by a nice long string of successful launches.
ISS Grapples Space...Dragon with Robotic Arm
So what happened to the satellite they left in the wrong orbit? If that can't be made right this launch is a big fail. Except for the ice cream of course.
It is not hard for me to see how SpaceX could make a good profit and still be cheaper than NASA. I suspect they don't have pensions on their budget. I suspect people work more than 40 hours a week, and without an expectation of overtime. I suspect they don't have 50-year-old facilities scattered throughout states in a way that only makes sense once you consider congressional districts. And finally, if they fail they go out of business. When NASA fails, the schedule slips. I have a feeling that given this incentive, they will manage risk differently...
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
As a household that just has 1 light bulb and nothing else electronic I think OP is correct.
The spacex website says a falcon9 launch is $54mil for 2012.
http://soylentnews.org/~tibman
You make the false assumption that NASA is just a whole bunch of government employees. In reality there are thousands of contractors or employees of contractors working for NASA's goals, and they are likely paid the same in terms of salaried, overtime exempt employment contracts as any other high tech engineering employee.
If SpaceX did anything, it removed the, "must build something for the Shuttle in each state" mantra, so that things are built where they make sense to build them. There apparently had been a company that could have built solid rocket boosters for the shuttle as one-piece structures and barged them to Florida instead of multiple 14' segments with those demonized o-rings, but Utah's Thiokol built 'em instead and had to segment them to bring them by rail.
Simply ending the need to split things up stupidly is alone going to help the costs.
Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
There will never be a profit model for exploration
Nonsense. You think the Americas were explored just because of curiosity? No, it was because people were exploring FOR something. Land, resources, minerals, etc. They didn't always know what they would find and they had to be flexible but they didn't go exploring just for the heck of it. Oil and mining companies explore for mineral wealth all the time. You can do exploration with a perfectly sensible profit model. The limitations to space exploration are economic and technological but not the lack of a potential profit model.
It is not hard for me to see how SpaceX could make a good profit and still be cheaper than NASA.
I think the biggest factor is NASA having to go through the traditional defense contractors who are also making a profit, but with cost-plus contracts.
Do I think SpaceX could make a good profit and still be cheaper than Lockheed or Boeing? Yes. Yes I do.
So at the end of the day this is cheaper for NASA.
The enemies of Democracy are
While there are really high voltages and currents in a lightning strike that work out to a large amount of energy, much of that energy is dissipated along the whole length of the strike. If you intercept it with some sort of tower, you will only get a portion of it. If this were some sort of household thing and you were limited to a few tens of meters for the tower, you would be lucky to get some fraction of a percent of that energy, not even taking into account efficiency of storage within that regime. If there is a tree in your yard that gets hit by lightning about once a week, maybe you could get some use out of it... but I would be willing to bet the resources needed for that would get you a lot more energy if used for wind power instead.
5 GJ is kind of the exceptionally large end, with 500 MJ being more average, which matches the figure the GP gives assuming one could actually extract all of that.
At the point on the capsule to which the arm will attach, the three metal pieces, are they magnetic? If not, does the arm have "fingers" which latch on to those points? Doesn't the act of pressing against the capsule to capture it invoke Newton's Law of opposite and equal reactions?
Why only one robot arm? Wouldn't it be better to have two arms so you don't apply as much torque to the one arm and make it easier to guide the capsule in?
I'm presuming with the use of maneuvering jets they were able to get the capsule in position and in free drift. How confident are they it is stable relative to the position of the ISS for the capture attempt?
We will bankrupt ourselves in the vain search for absolute security. -- Dwight D. Eisenhower
So on that subject, did these guys get paid this time?
I'm curious what they charged NASA, what they actually spent on this launch (not R&D costs to get here, just costs to build, fuel and launch)...
The spacex website says a falcon9 launch is $54mil for 2012.
That may be the cost quoted on the website, but they are charging NASA $133 million per launch. Development costs and the costs of the demonstration flights were charged (also to NASA) separately.
"SpaceX and NASA signed a $1.6 billion Commercial Resupply Services contract in December 2008 for 12 flights to the space station through 2015."
http://spaceflightnow.com/falcon9/003/120602crs/
$1.6B/12 launches = $133.3M/flight
http://www.geoffreylandis.com
Given that NASA was never in business of making rockets, I don't know what's your point, exactly. Oh, if you ask whether SpaceX provides services for a better price than Space Alliance or any other competitor out there: you bet. Vastly better price.
A successful API design takes a mixture of software design and pedagogy.
That's certainly true, but the government got it pretty much at firesale prices. They've got a bargain that hasn't been seen for quite a while.
A successful API design takes a mixture of software design and pedagogy.
Huge blow? It's a test satellite. It'll do fine in a lower orbit. Sure it won't last very long there (1 year or so I'd think), but it wasn't meant to last very long anyway. Sure it was meant to last longer, but they can do most of the intended tests at the present orbit, I'd think.
A successful API design takes a mixture of software design and pedagogy.
Nuclear technologies offer unlimited, high quality, stable power. Fission, and fusion. Base research into particle physics may provide additional breakthroughs in decades to come - antimatter, etc.
We just elect not to exploit them because oil is easy.. and thermodynamics and energy cycles are hard for the average person to understand.
..don't panic
The entire company, personnel, administration and construction facilities and every rocket launched to date including all failures for spacex is less than one nuclear submarine. And the company is pulling a profit. Where it gets its funds doesn't matter. What matters is that it is doing it as a company.
Talk is cheap. Tesla could have claimed whatever the heck he wanted to, but it was a fantasy with no basis in fact. Demonstrably so.
A successful API design takes a mixture of software design and pedagogy.
The statement "nothing to do with government" is incorrect.
If you want to go on and say "yes, but it was very inexpensive," that's a different topic.
http://www.geoffreylandis.com
You do realize that a fair chunk of the development cost was paid by SpaceX. NASA subsidized the development of Falcon 9 and Dragon, but only with set payments when set milestones had been achieved, they didn't just write a blank check and say 'go build us a rocket!'. Read up on the COTS (round 1 and round 2) and CCDev programs before spewing disinformation.
You seem to be confusing fiction with reality. (That's usually described as a mental illness.)
Nononono. It's usually described as american politics.
You make the false assumption that NASA is just a whole bunch of government employees.
Where did I make that assumption? Presumably at least some employees are government employees, and that is going to mean pension costs and productivity loss that SpaceX does not have.
As for government contractors... well, I worked for one and we had to keep very detailed records of our hours, and we were never allowed to work overtime. We actually got in trouble for staying late. It was frustrating, because you might only need another half of an hour to complete an experiment, but instead you had to clean it up and start over the next day. One co-op was being paid from a project that had completed, and he couldn't work on another project until that one was exhausted. They didn't want to do anything unscrupulous, so they made him sit there for a few weeks and review documentation from the completed project. The same documentation. Over, and over again. We also had to have paper records of everything, in some government-approved notebook. You would do all of your work on the computer, print out your work and data, and then literally cut-and-paste the work into these stupid notebooks. Then the notebook would be filed into a big cabinet, only making an appearance if we were audited. That was almost 20 years ago, so maybe it has changed - but it was very different than working in the "real" private sector.
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
SpaceX didn't meet the terms of the original contract. I'm sure there are some escape clauses and other legal language that will absolve SpaceX of liability in that case, and it should be noted that SpaceX did have the technical capability of completing the contract... NASA simply wouldn't let them relight the 2nd stage to push the Orbcomm satellite into a higher orbit. NASA's rationale for denying the 2nd burn of the upper stage of the Falcon 9 may even be reasonable, but unfortunately the satellite didn't get to where it was supposed to be at.
Sort of like the Phobos-Grunt mission that Russia sent up about a year ago. Yeah, it got up into space and looked cool, but it didn't get to where it was supposed to be at (which was Mars in the case of that particular spacecraft... and instead crashed into the Earth after a few hundred orbits).
SpaceX is going to make money by delivering on their promises. Failing to deliver has got to hurt no matter how you cut it up, and will certainly make for companies like Orbcomm and others thinking of using SpaceX services to think twice if the vehicles aren't going to where they were promised. That in this case the satellite was a test vehicle and its final orbit wasn't nearly as critical doesn't dismiss the fact that it was a sort of screw-up that needs to be addressed for other customers in the future. It certainly is a bit of tarnish on the reputation of SpaceX.
This particular spacecraft was originally supposed to fly on a Falcon 1e, but that vehicle has been cancelled (even though the Falcon 1e is still on the SpaceX main web page) and the full manifest has been transferred to the Falcon 9 family. Had Orbcomm been the primary customer instead of a secondary customer, would the result have been different? Are secondary customers going to always get the shaft with NASA as a primary customer?
You seem to be confusing fiction with reality. (That's usually described as a mental illness.)
More often as religion.
I suggest you should read up.
The development of Falcon 9 was paid by NASA. You are correct that NASA contracting does not work by cutting a large check and saying "tell us when you're done": contracts have set milestones with incremental payments as work is accomplished. However, these milestones are for things like passing critical design review. Even before the first flight of Falcon-9, they had already received $248 million dollars of NASA funding.
(http://www.nasa.gov/pdf/453605main_Commercial_Space_Minutes_4_26_2010.pdf )
The engines, however, were an incremental improvement over the Falcon 1 engine; so you're right in that the original engine development was not a NASA project.
http://www.geoffreylandis.com
Are secondary customers going to always get the shaft with NASA as a primary customer?
Yes. That's what happens with 'secondary' customers. They don't pay much at all. They get a sort-of free ride with the proviso that the primary customer is well, primary. I'm sure that has been thought through rather carefully by SpaceX, Orbcomm and NASA. Dozens of meetings. Thousands of emails. It's pretty normal these days. How to get into orbit on the cheap. You don't get the window seat and you get bumped often.
Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
Star Trek also had technology which reduced Maslow to the highest hierarchy for all of humanity. When we all have unlimited power sources, energy-to-matter conversions, and portable replicators in our homes (free of charge), then yes, we can all pursue greater accomplishments for the sake of humanity. Until then, we rely on those with the disposable income to match the vision of doing awesome things, 'just cuz'.
Do you really think that SpaceX developed all of Falcon 9 with just $248M?
No. The number I quoted of $248 Million was the portion of the NASA contract that had already been paid by NASA before the first flight. The payments from NASA continued after that. According to the Space-X web page, "The Falcon 9 launch vehicle was developed from a blank sheet to first launch in four and half years for just over $300 million." By the end of second COTS flight in May 2012, NASA had put in $396 million, paying for the development and two demo flights
see http://www.spaceflightnow.com/falcon9/003/120602crs/ :
"NASA invested $396 million into SpaceX under a public-private partnership agreement signed in 2006. The space agency released payments to the California-based company as it met design, testing and flight milestones."
or http://www.nasa.gov/pdf/649910main_cots2_presskit_051412.pdf :
"To date [i.e., May 1 2012, just before the COTS-2 launch] Space-X has received $381 million for completing 37 out of 40 milestones worth a possible $396 million in that [COTS] agreement."
That also covers Falcon-1.
No, that doesn't cover Falcon-1. That wasn't part of the Commercial Orbital Transportation contract, and NASA didn't pay for development of Falcon-1.
My point was that NASA paid for development of the Falcon-9; and it was not true that (as the post I originally responded to claimed), "government had nothing to do with it." If you want to say "yes, but it was remarkably inexpensive," or "yes, but they didn't pay for development of Falcon-1", or "yes, but private capital was invested to build up Space-X in the first place," or "yes, but private companies contracting with the government is a cost-effective way for NASA to do business," sure, all of these statements are fine; I agree.
http://www.geoffreylandis.com
Canadarm: "Beauty, eh."
"Robotic Arm Captures Dragon"
Sounds like a really bad SyFy channel movie of the week.
Or a good "Godzilla vs." movie from long ago.
Coder's Stone: The programming language quick ref for iPad
Gotta catch em all.
That was almost 20 years ago, so maybe it has changed
Nope.
SpaceX was already working on the development of the Falcon 9 before NASA got into the act....
Sorry, no, it wasn't.
Elon Musk had announced plans to do Falcon-9, at some unspecified time in the future, after Falcon-1 was making a profit, but they were not "working on it". Here is what the wikipedia article (the one you linked in your previous post) says on the subject:
"Musk is quoted as stating that if NASA funding had not been available to develop the Falcon-9, the vehicle would have been developed with private funding, but at a slower pace."
"would have been developed" is not the same as "working on it."
.... I'll admit that NASA money was involved and that it is a subsidy of the development of the Falcon 9, but it wasn't a "cost-plus" project nor has NASA been involved with the design choices.
That's fine: I did not state that it was a "cost plus" contract. (Not all NASA contracts are cost plus fixed fee.) Nor did I state that NASA was involved in the design choices (other than writing the specifications for what the vehicle must accomplish). All I'd said was that NASA funded its development.
Despite the NASA's involvement in the Falcon 9 has been more for general mission requirements and technology transfer as required by law... and to help promote the development of spaceflight in America, something also required by law and a part of the agency's explicit mission and charter as given to NASA by the United States Congress.
Yes, exactly. This is part of NASA's explicit mission.
NASA wasn't the first customer either, as SpaceX had a manifest of several other customers before NASA became one of them.
NASA was the first paying customer for Falcon-9. It was not the first customer for Falcon-1: I didn't say it was.
[goes on to list other customers for Falcon-1]
Yes, that's right; Falcon 1 was not funded by NASA, and developing a space booster from a clean sheet of paper was a magnificent feat, and a very impressive accomplishment for Space-X. I like Falcon-1; it's a nice design. I wish they hadn't taken it out of production, since there are many payloads that really could use a small, low cost booster like that.
The development of Falcon-9 was funded by NASA. There may have been projections for other customers on the manifest at one time, but only the ones that actually paid money count as "funding" the rocket.
http://www.geoffreylandis.com
Where are the big capacitors when you need them?