WaPo: SpaceX Dragon Rockets Toward Space Station, Opens New Era Of Spaceflight (Update: Successful Splashdown)

[mjah]

Private supply ship, SpaceX Dragon, rockets toward space station, opens new era of spaceflight

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. — A first-of-its-kind commercial supply ship rocketed toward the International Space Station following a successful liftoff early Tuesday, opening a new era of dollar-driven spaceflight.

The SpaceX company made history as its Falcon 9 rocket rose from its seaside launch pad and pierced the pre-dawn sky, aiming for a rendezvous in a few days with the space station. The unmanned rocket carried into orbit a capsule named Dragon that is packed with 1,000 pounds of space station provisions.

It is the first time a private company has launched a vessel to the space station. Before, that was something only major governments had done.

[more at link]

Edit: Looks like embedding is disabled for this video, so click the image below to watch the launch on YouTube.

[ixcuincle]

They got it off? I saw on the news that the other attempt to get it off was aborted at the last second

Good luck to them

[AsburySkinsFan]

Awesome! I hope they can start doing some more exciting stuff in the future now that NASA has given up.

[Larry]

Part of me is still sad. We don't have a manned orbit capability. I don't think we're even seriously working towards it.

OTOH, this is significant.

Not, IMO, because it's "a private company". IMO, that matters to politicians, but not to me. Our space program has always been a mix of government and private, and it still is.

But, to me, the idea of an automated craft, docking with the space station "on autopilot", so to speak? Now that's a capability that I've been complaining about the lack of for years. IMO, it's a capability that will be seriously needed, when/if we ever decide to get off our butts again and actually do something significant in space.

This is a capability that allows us to do other things, much more efficiently.

I'd really like to know more about that technology. Does the thing actually drive up to the station, and dock itself? Or does it stop 10 feet away, and the astronauts grab it with the arm, and pull it the rest of the way in? Or does it stop nearny, and an astronaut takes manual control from a control panel on the station?

Does it have an auto return capability?

[mjah]

Awesome! I hope they can start doing some more exciting stuff in the future now that NASA has given up.

Well, NASA gave up on Michael Griffin's idiotic pipe dream of sending men into space atop a hyper-sized model rocket engine, anyway.

Shame on them!

[Larry]

Well, NASA gave up on Michael Griffin's idiotic pipe dream of sending men into space atop a hyper-sized model rocket engine, anyway.

Shame on them!

You have a problem with solid rockets? I was under the impression that Challenger was the only time one had ever failed. (And, IMO, that failure was Congress' fault.)

[AsburySkinsFan]

The failure is to be spread around due to the total and unfailing lack of vision toward space, and 10 billion spent per month fighting a senseless war.

[Larry]

Hey, let's not turn this into a political thread.

- The guy who accidentally started it, and now regrets it.

[AsburySkinsFan]

Hey, let's not turn this into a political thread.

- The guy who accidentally started it, and now regrets it.

Oh I'm not wanting to do that, and as much as the privateer space industry is exciting it really just serves as a reminder of the failure of NASA.

[mistertim]

I wonder if it had NASCAR and Go Daddy ads on it.

[DCranon21]

I'm with Larry on this one. Part of me still wants a manned space flight from the Cape, but part of me is glad we are still sending rockets into orbit. Hopefully this launch turns into a goal of going back to manned space flight.

[AsburySkinsFan]

I'm with Larry on this one. Part of me still wants a manned space flight from the Cape, but part of me is glad we are still sending rockets into orbit. Hopefully this launch turns into a goal of going back to manned space flight.

Agreed, but hopefully the mission is more than the Astro-Truck Drivers they turned the shuttle mission into.

[endzone_dave]

I wonder how astronauts are going to feel launching in a vehicle where the people who made it has a primary goal of keeping shareholders happy.

[Larry]

Actually, I've thought for some time that it's time to de-governmentize SOME of the space business.

I've always thought that NASA should do the never-been-done, spectacular, things that don't make money. But that private industry is really good at taking existing technology, and an existing market, and making it efficient and reliable.

I don't see any reason why NASA should be in the business of launching communications satellites. It's a market that's been sufficiently established. I'd much rather see 3-4 companies (there has to be competition) doing that work, preferably all launching from Kennedy, with NASA functioning as the airport, so to speak.

IMO, delivering cargo to the space station is just such a mission.

I don't think we should be doing that with our manned missions. IMO, that market is still too small for there to be competition. (By that, I mean what I think of as "real" missions. I'm not talking about the "15 minute ride in the X-15", space tourist kind of things. I'm talking about missions that actually achieve orbit.)

But, IMO, even with the manned missions. Maybe the rocket that launches them should be private. Let NASA be in charge of the mission, the astronauts, the construction of their capsule. Then attach that capsule on top of a rocket that also launches commercial satellites into orbit.

[AsburySkinsFan]

I wonder how astronauts are going to feel launching in a vehicle where the people who made it has a primary goal of keeping shareholders happy.

About the same way that modern sea captains do today.

[Larry]

Agreed, but hopefully the mission is more than the Astro-Truck Drivers they turned the shuttle mission into.

Oh, I was cheering for them to become truck drivers. I wanted space launches to become routine.

And I'll point out: The shuttle is the only vehicle that could have built the space station. Nothing else was capable of putting payload of that size and weight into orbit.

But yeah, I agree. For a while there, I had the impression that NASA was really reaching, just to figure out something they could do with the shuttle.

---------- Post added May-22nd-2012 at 09:21 AM ----------

I wonder how astronauts are going to feel launching in a vehicle where the people who made it has a primary goal of keeping shareholders happy.

Oh, they always were.

I think that all of our capsules have been built by private companies. NASA was the customer.

[PeterMP]

Part of me is still sad. We don't have a manned orbit capability. I don't think we're even seriously working towards it.

OTOH, this is significant.

Not, IMO, because it's "a private company". IMO, that matters to politicians, but not to me. Our space program has always been a mix of government and private, and it still is.

But, to me, the idea of an automated craft, docking with the space station "on autopilot", so to speak? Now that's a capability that I've been complaining about the lack of for years. IMO, it's a capability that will be seriously needed, when/if we ever decide to get off our butts again and actually do something significant in space.

This is a capability that allows us to do other things, much more efficiently.

I'd really like to know more about that technology. Does the thing actually drive up to the station, and dock itself? Or does it stop 10 feet away, and the astronauts grab it with the arm, and pull it the rest of the way in? Or does it stop nearny, and an astronaut takes manual control from a control panel on the station?

Does it have an auto return capability?

It looks like much of the SpaceX rocket will be controlled from the ground. The docking will be accomplished via the robotic arm with the control of an astronaut.

http://www.spacex.com/downloads/COTS-2-Press-Kit-5-14-12.pdf

It is returning, but I'm not sure that it can be reused.

Okay, the "dragon" part (the part that's actually doing the docking) can be reused.

http://www.spacex.com/dragon.php

I think the question become how reusable is it in terms of costs and how long is it good for (how many missions).

[AsburySkinsFan]

Oh, I was cheering for them to become truck drivers. I wanted space launches to become routine.

And I'll point out: The shuttle is the only vehicle that could have built the space station. Nothing else was capable of putting payload of that size and weight into orbit.

But yeah, I agree. For a while there, I had the impression that NASA was really reaching, just to figure out something they could do with the shuttle.

No doubt, I want launches to become routine as well, and I'd say that by in large they have become that, I mean who watches a rocket launch live anymore? I remember until Challenger they seemed to be broadcast live all the time, and then they broadcast the one that followed Challenger (Discovery?) but after that....meh, they became ordinary. I wonder how many folks even remember that we lost one on re-entry. So yeah, I want routine, but NASA stopped pushing. I love that the shuttle was there to do payload delivery for the ISS, but NASA became like a kid who grew out of adolescence and gave up on the dreams of youth and they settled for what they could get paid to do. As such they stopped inspiring the next generation. And I'll readily admit that this is anecdotal evidence, but my wife teaches pre-school and for the past three years at their graduation of 12 students they always ask them 1 on 1 during the ceremony what they want to be when they grow up, and in three years not one has said an astronaut. When I was a kid there was no more exciting thing than the thought of going into space and exploring, now kids don't even dream of the stars and that's sad IMO.

[PeterMP]

I don't think Musk is in space travel for the money. I'm sure he'd like to break even, at least, but I don't think he's looking to really make money there.

That's just my impression of him in terms of some of the things he's taken up.

[mjah]

You have a problem with solid rockets? I was under the impression that Challenger was the only time one had ever failed. (And, IMO, that failure was Congress' fault.)

Agreed that the SRB failure was not a technical fault, but a human fault.

SRBs are great for giving a huge, size-efficient, cost-efficient extra oomph to a rocket that otherwise is liquid-fueled. They're great, as side-mounted supplementary propulsion. But as a primary provider of delta-p to humans, they are unforgiving and incredibly (read: fatally) harsh mistresses. They can't be throttled, can't be turned off once lit, and cause massive vibration issues which are only solved by damping them out with the immense bulk of the rest of the liquid-fuel rocket. Launching humans using only a solid booster has never been done, for these reasons and more. The idea is seductively cheap, if ever it could be made to work. But shaking humans literally to death is a problem.

Michael Griffin's idea was to use an SRB-only man-rated launcher. The fundamental failure of that idea, due to intractable technical challenges that were known and warned about in advance, led directly to the cancellation of Ares I. Had a better concept been selected, today we likely would be just a few years from seeing a new NASA-branded manned spacecraft.

Incredible that one political appointee can cause so much damage to a Federal agency. But such were the times 10 years ago, and that's a topic for a different thread.

As it is, we're still just a few years from a manned launch from US soil thanks to private industry. With this successful launch to the Space Station, SpaceX (as a NASA contractor, not a NASA "failure") will be on the fast track to launching their manned capsule in the next few years, which roughly matches the timeline we would have seen from NASA in the first place.

And the Dragon capsule launched today will dock with the ISS in a semi-automated fashion, with some extra safety precautions taken due to it being a prototype mission. The idea is to be more fully automated in the future -- though certainly humans will still be watching and communicating with the capsule as it goes through its docking procedure.

Lots of promise in the air (and space), for LEO operations anyway.

Edit: A bunch of this was already discussed while I went outside mid-post. Sorry for the repeats.

[techboy]

Oh I'm not wanting to do that, and as much as the privateer space industry is exciting it really just serves as a reminder of the failure of NASA.

I attended a special event for teachers at Udvar Hazy during the celebration of the arrival of Enterprise, and they had several speakers there from NASA. One of them was the guy in charge of the commercial contracts, and his perspective was that historically, governments have been in the business of pushing the boundaries of exploration, while private industry takes over in the areas that have been well established, from the days of Columbus and Cortez.

He argued that we've been in Near Earth Orbit for 50 plus years, and now it's time for private industry to take over, and let governments focus on pushing the boundaries outward, back to the moon, Mars, that sort of thing.

It made sense, though there was less of a sense of confidence in the theater about the dedication and funding applied to that push at the moment.

[Larry]

It looks like much of the SpaceX rocket will be controlled from the ground. The docking will be accomplished via the robotic arm with the control of an astronaut.

http://www.spacex.com/downloads/COTS-2-Press-Kit-5-14-12.pdf

It is returning, but I'm not sure that it can be reused.

Okay, the "dragon" part (the part that's actually doing the docking) can be reused.

http://www.spacex.com/dragon.php

I think the question become how reusable is it in terms of costs and how long is it good for (how many missions).

I don't really care much how reusable it is.

If making it disposable makes it cheaper/safer/more reliable, then I'm all for that.

Now, I assume that eventually, we'll be making reusable spacecraft. But IMO, it's not a major objective, right now.

----------

Oh, and thanks for the info.

[AsburySkinsFan]

I attended a special event for teachers at Udvar Hazy during the celebration of the arrival of Enterprise, and they had several speakers there from NASA. One of them was the guy in charge of the commercial contracts, and his perspective was that historically, governments have been in the business of pushing the boundaries of exploration, while private industry takes over in the areas that have been well established, from the days of Columbus and Cortez.

He argued that we've been in Near Earth Orbit for 50 plus years, and now it's time for private industry to take over, and let governments focus on pushing the boundaries outward, back to the moon, Mars, that sort of thing.

It made sense, though there was less of a sense of confidence in the theater about the dedication and funding applied to that push at the moment.

Oh I could agree with that, but like you said...where is the vision? What are we pointing at now? It seems like the hand off to privateers has been accomplished but they forgot the 2nd part.

[hunterx]

It's exciting, and other companies have plans to launch rockets soon too. I think the private industry will compete with eachother, and the technology will advance much quicker. Hopefully in 5-10 years there can be a new and more efficient way to send rockets/ships into space and back down here without spending so much money.

Like Larry said, let the private industry maximize it's efforts in the earth orbiting rockets/satellites while the Government studies more universe shattering missions.

[mjah]

I think the problem with the big-vision part is the lack of a destination that is, for the price tag:

1. Close enough to reach with the technology of the next 10 years; and

2. Worth sending people to for some scientifically interesting or politically valuable reason.

The Moon shots, while scientifically fascinating, were funded because they had immense political value. IMO there's little value in going back, given the immense cost.

Mars? Technologically impossible at the moment.