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SpaceX Successfully Launches, Recovers Falcon 9 For CRS-12 (techcrunch.com)

Posted by BeauHD on from the here-we-go-again dept.

Another SpaceX rocket has been successfully launched from NASA's Kennedy Space Center today, carrying a Dragon capsule loaded with over 6,400 pounds of cargo destined for the International Space Station. This marks an even dozen for ISS resupply missions launched by SpaceX under contract to NASA. TechCrunch reports: The rocket successfully launched from NASA's Kennedy Space Center at 12:31 PM EDT, and Dragon deployed from the second stage as planned. Dragon will rendezvous with the ISS on August 16 for capture by the station's Canadarm 2 robotic appendage, after which it'll be attached to the rocket. After roughly a month, it'll return to Earth after leaving the ISS with around 3,000 pounds of returned cargo on board, and splash down in the Pacific Ocean for recovery. There's another reason this launch was significant, aside from its experimental payload (which included a supercomputer designed to help humans travel to Mars): SpaceX will only use re-used Dragon capsules for all future CRS missions, the company has announced, meaning this is the last time a brand new Dragon will be used to resupply the ISS, if all goes to plan. Today's launch also included an attempt to recover the Falcon 9 first stage for re-use at SpaceX's land-based LZ-1 landing pad. The Falcon 9 first stage returned to Earth as planned, and touched down at Cape Canaveral roughly 9 minutes after launch.

71 comments

  1. Getting kinda old news by NEDHead · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Which is what I always had hoped for the shuttle program

    1. Re:Getting kinda old news by crashumbc · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Actually the shuttle spent MANY years as old hat. It after the first 3-4 years it only really made the news 3 times. The two explosions and the last missions.

    2. Re:Getting kinda old news by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

      You forgot Hubble dude. The Hubble Space Telescope (OK, and parts of the ISS too) was the crowning achievement of the shuttle.

    3. Re:Getting kinda old news by haruchai · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Actually the shuttle spent MANY years as old hat. It after the first 3-4 years it only really made the news 3 times. The two explosions and the last missions.

      That's too bad because it proved to be a very expensive antique hat, on the order of $500 MILLION PER LAUNCH!!
      Much as I liked the idea of the shuttle, in the end the costs were much too high

      --
      Pain is merely failure leaving the body
    4. Re:Getting kinda old news by Applehu+Akbar · · Score: 1, Offtopic

      The Shuttle dropped out of the news after the first few flights, but it never became routine, the "airliner of space" that had been hoped for. It took a standing army of 35,000 workers to keep Shuttle going. And it was never turned around in the originally planned two weeks for the next flight.

      We want these SpaceX missions to become old hat and routine.

    5. Re:Getting kinda old news by john.r.strohm · · Score: 1

      Correction.

      The Hon. Mr. Rohrabacher asked NASA about Shuttle launch costs.

      It cost one billion dollars per flight.

  2. Pounds? Don't you mean kilograms? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Insightful

    Why is the Cargo measured in Pounds when everything else spacey is in metric?

    1. Re:Pounds? Don't you mean kilograms? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Kilograms are mass; pounds are weight

    2. Re: Pounds? Don't you mean kilograms? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Because it's American. Europeans coming to a foreign site insulting the local culture is immature and rude. Why do all of you feel the need to do this? We don't visit your websites and insult you for continuing to pronounce Aluminum wrong. Please kindly go invent your own reusable rocket system and then you can feel free to measure its payload capacity with whatever units you prefer.

    3. Re:Pounds? Don't you mean kilograms? by Strider- · · Score: 1

      Because it's press releases for the unwashed masses. NASA, and the ISS in particular, operate entirely in a pure metric environment. Heck, this is the same for the other and related agencies. You walk into JPL and ask where the washroom is, you're likely to hear something along the lines of 5 meters down the hall, and to your left.

      --
      ...si hoc legere nimium eruditionis habes...
    4. Re: Pounds? Don't you mean kilograms? by viperidaenz · · Score: 1

      The original source first mentions kilograms

      CRS-12 will deliver 2,910 kilograms (6,415 pounds) of cargo to the station

      https://www.nasaspaceflight.co...
      Pretty sure NASA is American...

    5. Re:Pounds? Don't you mean kilograms? by viperidaenz · · Score: 1

      Because the journalists at techcrunch.com don't know what a kilogram is.
      Thankfully NASA does. https://www.nasaspaceflight.co...

    6. Re:Pounds? Don't you mean kilograms? by ytene · · Score: 0

      Are you sure? I thought that both pounds and kilograms measured weight.

      IIRC (it has been a long time since I studied physics), mass was measured in Newton's. The definition of weight as distinct from mass is that all matter has mass all the time, but it only has weight when that mass is experiencing the force of gravity within a gravitational field.

      Thus, I have a constant mass... If I weighed myself on Earth I will weigh more than if I weighed myself on the Moon. Even though my mass remains constant, my weight will vary proportionally with local gravity. This is why F=ma is true anywhere in the universe.

    7. Re:Pounds? Don't you mean kilograms? by Strider- · · Score: 4, Informative

      IIRC (it has been a long time since I studied physics), mass was measured in Newton's. The definition of weight as distinct from mass is that all matter has mass all the time, but it only has weight when that mass is experiencing the force of gravity within a gravitational field.

      the Kilogram is a measure of mass. However, due to the way that scales and the like are calibrated here on earth, it corresponds to the weight as well. Force is measured in Newtons (F=ma), so if you hold a 1kg object suspended in the air, you need to apply 9.8 newtons of force to prevent it from moving.

      --
      ...si hoc legere nimium eruditionis habes...
    8. Re:Pounds? Don't you mean kilograms? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Kilograms are mass; pounds are weight

      Pounds can be considered as either mass or weight.

      Weight is measured in units of force. By convention, one pound of force is the force created on one pound of mass at Earth's sea level (or something like that.)

      On the other hand, kilograms are strictly a measure of mass. However, scales (such as those in a butcher shop or in your bathroom) usually measure the force of gravity on an object (i.e, its weight) but display the equivalent mass (in kilograms or pounds.)

    9. Re:Pounds? Don't you mean kilograms? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Funny

      Nah. Pounds measures currency.

    10. Re: Pounds? Don't you mean kilograms? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Funny

      There's a joke about that.

      "There are two kinds of countries: the kind who have sent men to the moon, and the kind who use the metric system."

    11. Re: Pounds? Don't you mean kilograms? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      So much wrong in one little post.

    12. Re:Pounds? Don't you mean kilograms? by Michael+Woodhams · · Score: 2

      Scientists, especially rocket scientists, need to distinguish between mass and weight (force). In SI, it is very clear: mass is in kilograms, weight is in Newtons. Pounds can be mass or weight, depending on what system you use.

      In Imperial, traditional use treats mass and weight as interchangeable, both measured in pounds. Scientific use must make a distinction, hence must choose whether a pound is mass or force. If you choose to treat a pound as mass, then the unit of force in your system is the poundal. If you choose to tread a pound as force, then your unit of mass is the slug. Both systems have been used, but I have little idea as to their current prevalence as I am both a scientist and living in a non-backwards country, so I only know these systems like I know farthings, shillings, crowns and guineas. (There is/has been yet a third option, using pounds-mass and pounds-force. This would require various formulae to have factors of 32 (feet/sec/sec) in them to make them work.)

      More details at Wikipedia.

      --
      Quattuor res in hoc mundo sanctae sunt: libri, liberi, libertas et liberalitas.
    13. Re: Pounds? Don't you mean kilograms? by Michael+Woodhams · · Score: 4, Funny

      This post demonstrates that any sufficiently advanced idiocy or ignorance is indistinguishable from trolling.

      --
      Quattuor res in hoc mundo sanctae sunt: libri, liberi, libertas et liberalitas.
    14. Re: Pounds? Don't you mean kilograms? by Applehu+Akbar · · Score: 1

      No, youâ(TM)re flat out wrong. The kg is the SI standard unit of weight. The N is the SI standard unit of mass and corresponds to 1kg of weight in 1 gravity.

      You have it flat out backwards.

    15. Re:Pounds? Don't you mean kilograms? by Applehu+Akbar · · Score: 2

      Pounds can be considered as either mass or weight.

      The imperial unit of mass is the slug.

    16. Re:Pounds? Don't you mean kilograms? by youngone · · Score: 2

      Kilogrammes are what the world uses to measure weight (and mass).
      Pounds are what the US, Liberia and Myanmar use.

    17. Re:Pounds? Don't you mean kilograms? by Gavagai80 · · Score: 1

      Named after his massiveness Jabba the Hut?

      --
      This space intentionally left blank
    18. Re: Pounds? Don't you mean kilograms? by waimate · · Score: 1

      You do know that since the Mendenhall Order of 1893, US customary units such as feet and pounds are actually defined in terms of metric ?

    19. Re: Pounds? Don't you mean kilograms? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      But that's only because they had the right paperclip at the right place at the right time (half joking, yes, but couldn't... resist).

    20. Re:Pounds? Don't you mean kilograms? by CustomSolvers2 · · Score: 1

      Kilograms are mass; pounds are weight

      This and quite a few comments below are wrong. Both kilograms and pounds measure mass. Weight is another name for force, which is measured in different units in both systems. There are force units which have similar names to their mass counter-parts (e.g., kilogram-force or pound-force). Conventionally, we talk about kilograms/pounds and mass/weight almost interchangeably, but this is technically wrong.

      COMPLETELY-MOTIVATED SELF-ADVERTISEMENT: I have developed completely from scratch a quite comprehensive unit-parsing library in C# (converted to Java): UnitParser (first part of FlexibleParser). It is open source and the files dealing with basic unit classifications are quite user-friendly. For example, unit names in C# and Java.

      --
      Custom Solvers 2.0 = Alvaro Carballo Garcia = varocarbas.
    21. Re:Pounds? Don't you mean kilograms? by CustomSolvers2 · · Score: 1

      Rather than "Weight is another name for force", I should have written "weight is a force (mass * gravity acceleration)".

      --
      Custom Solvers 2.0 = Alvaro Carballo Garcia = varocarbas.
    22. Re: Pounds? Don't you mean kilograms? by ByteSlicer · · Score: 2

      There's a joke about that.

      "There are two kinds of countries: the kind who have sent men to the moon, and the kind who use the metric system."

      The actual joke is that NASA, the company that landed the men on the moon, now mostly uses the metric system, and was partly using it back then.
      In fact, the guidance computers of the Apollo missions were programmed in metric, but displayed/input in English.

    23. Re: Pounds? Don't you mean kilograms? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The attribute you're describing is density, not mass. 1kg of lead and 1kg of water and 1kg of air all have exactly the same mass: 1kg, if we're on Earth.

    24. Re: Pounds? Don't you mean kilograms? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      +1

    25. Re: Pounds? Don't you mean kilograms? by painandgreed · · Score: 1

      There's a joke about that.

      "There are two kinds of countries: the kind who have sent men to the moon, and the kind who use the metric system."

      The actual joke is that NASA, the company that landed the men on the moon, now mostly uses the metric system, and was partly using it back then. In fact, the guidance computers of the Apollo missions were programmed in metric, but displayed/input in English.

      IIRC, the USA was the second nation to switch to the metric system. However, it does not forcefully proscribe its usage. For science, metric notation is used for most everything. Even in standard measurements, they are all officially determined by metric values.

    26. Re:Pounds? Don't you mean kilograms? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Pounds is size of nails. If you get 6 pound nails, you have to hit them 6 times to make them go all the way in.

  3. Musk by 110010001000 · · Score: 1, Interesting

    Is there anything that guy CAN'T do?

    1. Re:Musk by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Convincing facial expressions

    2. Re:Musk by sessamoid · · Score: 0, Offtopic

      Is there anything that guy CAN'T do?

      Convince the current POTUS not to be a racist, bigoted asshole?

      --
      "No, no, no. Don't tug on that. You never know what it might be attached to."
    3. Re:Musk by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      pass the turing test

    4. Re:Musk by Baron_Yam · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Actually, Elon failed to convince him not to be a fossil-fuel boosting climate change denier.

      It's a completely different rich guy who failed to convince him to be a racist, bigoted asshole.

      On that last note, I find it really sad that only the black guy felt the need to cut ties; in my opinion, it shows you that none of them have any principles unless it hits close to home.

    5. Re:Musk by Baron_Yam · · Score: 0

      Crap. "It's a completely different rich guy who failed to convince him to NOT be a racist, bigoted asshole."

      There are days where I really wish Slashdot allowed post editing, if only for a few minutes or so. And didn't stop me from posting a corrective child comment for a while.

    6. Re:Musk by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      stay married?

    7. Re:Musk by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      stay married??

    8. Re:Musk by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Grow hair on his scalp?

    9. Re:Musk by Z80a · · Score: 1

      To make the US internet good.

    10. Re:Musk by drgould · · Score: 1

      To make the US internet good.

      SpaceX plans worldwide satellite Internet with low latency, gigabit speed

    11. Re: Musk by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You mean elon "i fly in a carbon burning private plane multiple times a week" but muh...climate change....

      Like inconvenient truther al gores 220kw(?) house that is orders of magnitude more inefficient than a typical home...muh climate change.

      Like nicolas taleb says...u gotta have skin in the gameif you want to prognosticate.

      But trumps the denier? When elon flies commercial and walks to work daily and al gores house is 100% carbon neutral and all his speeches are done via video conference, THEN and only then will i listen to anything they have to say about climate change

    12. Re:Musk by Dutch+Gun · · Score: 1

      Break out of the computer simulation?

      --
      Irony: Agile development has too much intertia to be abandoned now.
    13. Re:Musk by oldgraybeard · · Score: 1

      This is cool stuff! The post is ok the sub posters are a problem! the entire sub thread is nothing but a display by ignorant PC correct losers. There was no reason to bring any of this (what the bull leaves in the cow pasture) in. It is unrelated and just makes the 3 of you look bad. Ignore this sub thread! Just saying!

    14. Re:Musk by oldgraybeard · · Score: 1

      OK this did not end up in the right spot. I was posting about the first thread. Me bad ;)

    15. Re:Musk by Thelasko · · Score: 1

      Is there anything that guy CAN'T do?

      Make an engaging presentation.

      He does well, but you can tell he's not a natural public speaker. There are a lot of long pauses while he gathers his thoughts.

      The main reason his presentations are successful is because the material is so damn interesting. He also has a lot of very good slides prepared. Otherwise, his presentation style is lackluster.

      --
      One of our competitors trademarked the term "hypothesis". From now on, we will call them "boneheaded ideas".
    16. Re:Musk by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      One workaround is to get back to work and stop making slashdot posts.... then you don't have posts you wish you could correct.

  4. Couple of clarifications to the summary... by Strider- · · Score: 1

    First the obvious, the Dragon will be berthed to the station, not to the rocket. That was done in Florida prior to launch.

    Secondly, this is likely the last new Dragon 1 pressure vessel that will be launched. Given that they splash down in rather corrosive salt water, there's significant effort to re-manufacture the capsules for launch, and the pressure vessel is a portion of that.

    --
    ...si hoc legere nimium eruditionis habes...
  5. recovers by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    When you put your car in the garage, you don't say 'recovers'.

    1. Re:recovers by Strider- · · Score: 1

      No, but if you land a jet on an aircraft carrier, that's generally referred to as aircraft recovery.

      --
      ...si hoc legere nimium eruditionis habes...
  6. 6,400 pounds by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    When you talk about "space things" you don't use pounds, you use the metric system. http://edition.cnn.com/TECH/space/9909/30/mars.metric.02/

    1. Re: 6,400 pounds by ceoyoyo · · Score: 2

      True! But since we're monkeys with ten fingers we invented a decimal counting system that we all learn as children. That pairs really well with a measuring system that is ALSO base 10.

      If your counting system is base 10 and your measuring system is base... um, 32? Or is it 5238? 12? Anyway, anything other than base 10, it makes everything difficult.

    2. Re: 6,400 pounds by Namarrgon · · Score: 1

      And yet we do have a base-10 numbering system, so designing our units and prefixes around that makes a lot of sense. As do units that don't require dozens of arcane constants to convert between them.

      There are very good reasons why all scientists and nearly all countries switched to SI units long ago.

      --
      Why would anyone engrave "Elbereth"?
    3. Re: 6,400 pounds by Waffle+Iron · · Score: 2

      There is nothing universally good about the number 10, we only think that because our monkey ancestors gave us 10 fingers. A more advanced alien species might have 12 tentacles and think our base10 system is retarded.

      A base 10 number system *is* retarded compared to a base 12 system. Even the illiterate medieval craftsmen who came up with many of the half-assed pseudo-duodecimal measurements used in the imperial system could sense that. With Roman Numerals making arithmetic almost impossible anyway, why not?

      However, given that we ended up standardizing on base 10 Arabic numerals, all of that became moot. Trying to mix half-assed base 12 with base 10 is FAR worse than just using base 10 for everything. It's willfully choosing to double down on retarded.

    4. Re: 6,400 pounds by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      No base is retarded, they all can do the same thing.

    5. Re: 6,400 pounds by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      'Pound is just as good as kilograms. '

      Yes we know, but sometimes this stuff makes spacecrafts crash on Mars, I thought you'd learned by now.

    6. Re: 6,400 pounds by Waffle+Iron · · Score: 1

      No base is retarded, they all can do the same thing.

      Not true; more factors are better. 12 can be evenly divided four ways, but ten can only be evenly divided two ways. Moreover, dividing by 3 is more useful than dividing by 5.

    7. Re: 6,400 pounds by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Factors of 12: 1, 2, 3, 4, 6, 12. 12x1, 6x2, 4x3. That's three ways it can be evenly divided. (really just two; exclude 12x1).
      Factors of 10: 1, 2, 5, 10. 10x1, 5x2. That's two ways (but really just one, as above). /pedant

    8. Re: 6,400 pounds by Waffle+Iron · · Score: 1

      Worse than /pedant; incorrect pedant.

      For real-world applications, you need to count both divisors and ignore the N/1: 10/2, 10/5 vs. 12/2 12/3 12/4 12/6

    9. Re: 6,400 pounds by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I guess Base2 is closer to useless? :) Some do factor better, but I still say no base is retarded - in terms of use, they still do the same thing: Count, from which you can get all the 4 basic operators. I concede better utility from others.

  7. I actually saw this rocket in person by theurge14 · · Score: 4, Interesting

    I got to take a private tour of the SpaceX testing facility in Texas a few weeks back, I was a few feet away from the team installing the flight computers on top of the Stage 1 in the hanger in McGregor a few weeks back.

    Amazing stuff to see in person, and really emotional to see the same Stage 1 launch today and land.

    (On another note, the people in the hangar were listening to Katy Perry as they were working. Sorry guys, I had to.)

    1. Re:I actually saw this rocket in person by mandolin · · Score: 1

      Did they have "Firework" on repeat?

    2. Re:I actually saw this rocket in person by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The decals on the datacenter racks and the sign on the door to the Raptor engine development area were nice touches too.

  8. This is like the IT burst all over again... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Your projects are cancelled and plans are destroyed to save money. So what do we do? Contract out to another entity that costs more in the end to keep the plan rolling.

    Um, people learned how to follow numbers a while ago. Hiding them or offsetting them doesn't work anymore.

  9. Elon vs Un by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    What would happen if Elon Musk decided to send a missile to Pyongyang?