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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.

9 of 71 comments (clear)

  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
  2. 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...
  3. Re:Pounds? Don't you mean kilograms? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Funny

    Nah. Pounds measures currency.

  4. 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."

  5. 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.)

  6. 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.