OrbitalHub

NASA dixit:

“The SpaceX CRS-13 mission begins with an on-time liftoff of the company’s Falcon 9 rocket and Dragon spacecraft from Space Launch Complex 40 at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida. Launch occurred on December 15 at 10:36 a.m. EST. The Dragon is carrying equipment, science and supplies to the International Space Station on SpaceX’s 13th commercial cargo resupply mission.”

Video credit: NASA Kennedy Space Center

Wikipedia dixit:

“SpaceX CRS-10, also known as SpX-10 or simply CRS-10, is a cargo resupply mission to the International Space Station. The mission was contracted by NASA and was launched by SpaceX aboard a Dragon spacecraft on 19 February 2017. The mission is currently active, with the Dragon spacecraft in orbit adjusting and preparing for docking to the ISS, which is expected between 21 February and 22 February 2017. CRS-10 is part of the original order of twelve missions awarded to SpaceX under the Commercial Resupply Services contract. As of June 2016, a NASA Inspector General report had this mission manifested for November 2016. The launch was put on hold pending investigation of the pad explosion in September 2016, with a tentative date no earlier than January 2017, subsequently set for 18 February.

CRS-10 was launched from Kennedy Space Center Launch Complex 39 Pad A, the first launch from the complex since STS-135 on 8 July 2011, the last flight of the Space Shuttle program; this complex is also where the Apollo missions were launched. On 12 February 2017, SpaceX successfully completed a static fire test of the Falcon 9 engines on Pad 39A. An initial launch attempt on 18 February 2017 was scrubbed 13 seconds before its 15:01 UTC launch due to a thrust vector control system issue, resulting in a 24-hour hold for launch no earlier than 19 February at 14:38:59 UTC.

Following the successful Launch on 19 February, the first stage returned and landed safely in landing Zone 1.

NASA has contracted for the CRS-10 mission from SpaceX and therefore determines the primary payload, date/time of launch, and orbital parameters for the Dragon space capsule. CRS-10 is expected to carry 1,530 kg (3,373.1 lb) of pressurized mass and 960 kg (2,116.4 lb) unpressurized. External payloads on the CRS-10 spacecraft are the SAGE III Earth observation experiment and its Nadir Viewing Platform (NVP), and the U.S. Department of Defense’s Space Test Program H5 (STP-H5) package, including the Raven navigation investigation and the Lightning Imaging Sensor. Some science payloads include ACME, LMM Biophysics, ZBOT, and CIR/Cool Flames.”

Video credit: SpaceX

SpaceX dixit:

“SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket will launch the Dragon spacecraft to low Earth orbit to deliver critical cargo to the International Space Station (ISS) for NASA. SpaceX is targeting an afternoon launch of its eighth Commercial Resupply Services mission (CRS-8) from Space Launch Complex 40 at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, Fla. The instantaneous launch window opens on April 8th at 8:43pm UTC, and a backup launch window opens at 8:20pm UTC on April 9th. Dragon will be deployed about 10 minutes after liftoff and attach to the ISS about two days after launch. Following stage separation, the first stage of the Falcon 9 will attempt an experimental landing on the Of Course I Still Love You droneship in the Atlantic Ocean.”

Video credit: SpaceX

From the July 20, 2015 press release:

“On June 28, 2015, following a nominal liftoff, Falcon 9 experienced an overpressure event in the upper stage liquid oxygen tank approximately 139 seconds into flight, resulting in loss of mission. This summary represents an initial assessment, but further investigation may reveal more over time.

Prior to the mishap, the first stage of the vehicle, including all nine Merlin 1D engines, operated nominally; the first stage actually continued to power through the overpressure event on the second stage for several seconds following the mishap. In addition, the Dragon spacecraft not only survived the second stage event, but also continued to communicate until the vehicle dropped below the horizon and out of range.

SpaceX has led the investigation efforts with oversight from the FAA and participation from NASA and the U.S. Air Force. Review of the flight data proved challenging both because of the volume of data —over 3,000 telemetry channels as well as video and physical debris—and because the key events happened very quickly.

From the first indication of an issue to loss of all telemetry was just 0.893 seconds. Over the last few weeks, engineering teams have spent thousands of hours going through the painstaking process of matching up data across rocket systems down to the millisecond to understand that final 0.893 seconds prior to loss of telemetry.

At this time, the investigation remains ongoing, as SpaceX and the investigation team continue analyzing significant amounts of data and conducting additional testing that must be completed in order to fully validate these conclusions. However, given the currently available data, we believe we have identified a potential cause.

Preliminary analysis suggests the overpressure event in the upper stage liquid oxygen tank was initiated by a flawed piece of support hardware (a “strut”) inside the second stage. Several hundred struts fly on every Falcon 9 vehicle, with a cumulative flight history of several thousand. The strut that we believe failed was designed and material certified to handle 10,000 lbs of force, but failed at 2,000 lbs, a five-fold difference. Detailed close-out photos of stage construction show no visible flaws or damage of any kind.

In the case of the CRS-7 mission, it appears that one of these supporting pieces inside the second stage failed approximately 138 seconds into flight. The pressurization system itself was performing nominally, but with the failure of this strut, the helium system integrity was breached. This caused a high pressure event inside the second stage within less than one second and the stage was no longer able to maintain its structural integrity.

Despite the fact that these struts have been used on all previous Falcon 9 flights and are certified to withstand well beyond the expected loads during flight, SpaceX will no longer use these particular struts for flight applications. In addition, SpaceX will implement additional hardware quality audits throughout the vehicle to further ensure all parts received perform as expected per their certification documentation.

As noted above, these conclusions are preliminary. Our investigation is ongoing until we exonerate all other aspects of the vehicle, but at this time, we expect to return to flight this fall and fly all the customers we intended to fly in 2015 by end of year.

While the CRS-7 loss is regrettable, this review process invariably will, in the end, yield a safer and more reliable launch vehicle for all of our customers, including NASA, the United States Air Force, and commercial purchasers of launch services. Critically, the vehicle will be even safer as we begin to carry U.S. astronauts to the International Space Station in 2017.”

Credits: NASA/Tony Gray and Kevin O’Connell

… or to be more exact, the cheese re-entered the Earth’s atmosphere and performed a successful splashdown in the Pacific Ocean onboard SpaceX’s Dragon spacecraft on December 8, 2010. The same day, roughly three and a half hours earlier, the Dragon spacecraft was placed into low Earth orbit by a Falcon 9 launch vehicle, which lifted off from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station Space Launch Complex 40 on COTS Demo Flight 1.

On this flight, several key components of the Dragon spacecraft were tested: the Draco thrusters, which control the spacecraft throughout flight and reentry; the PICA-X heat shield, which is the SpaceX variant of NASA’s phenolic impregnated carbon ablator (PICA) heat shield; avionics; telemetry; and the drogue and main parachutes used for stabilization and landing.

The Dragon spacecraft is capable of fully autonomous rendezvous and docking, can carry over three metric tons in each of the pressurized and unpressurized sections, and it supports five to seven passengers in crew configuration. SpaceX’s primary goal for this demo flight was to collect as much data as possible.

Before the launch, Elon Musk, SpaceX CEO and CTO, made the following statement:

“When Dragon returns, whether on this mission or a future one, it will herald the dawn of an incredibly exciting new era in space travel. This will be the first new American human capable spacecraft to travel to orbit and back since the Space Shuttle took flight three decades ago. The success of the NASA COTS/CRS program shows that it is possible to return to the fast pace of progress that took place during the Apollo era, but using only a tiny fraction of the resources. If COTS/CRS continues to achieve the milestones that many considered impossible, thanks in large part to the skill of the program management team at NASA, it should be recognized as one of the most effective public-private partnerships in history.”

Credits: SpaceX

SpaceX has announced that the Falcon 9 launch vehicle was raised to vertical on its launch pad at Space Launch Complex 40 (SLC-40) in Cape Canaveral, Florida.

SpaceX was awarded a Commercial Resupply Service (CRS) contract in December 2008. The Falcon 9 launch vehicle and the Dragon spacecraft will be used as the primary means of transporting cargo to and from the International Space Station (ISS) after the Space Shuttle is retired by NASA.

The Falcon 9 launch vehicle will provide the lowest cost per kilogram to orbit. The 54.9 m long and 3.6 m wide launcher will be able to lift payloads with a mass of 12,500 kg to a low Earth orbit (LEO) for only $36.75 million. For more details on the pricing of the Falcon 9 missions, you can check out the page dedicated to Falcon 9 on SpaceX’s web site.

“This entire process has helped us validate key interfaces and operations prior to executing our launch campaign with the vehicle in its final flight configuration,” said Elon Musk, CEO and CTO of SpaceX. “We encountered no show-stoppers or significant delays. I am highly confident that we will achieve our goal of being able to go from hangar to liftoff in under 60 minutes, which would be a big leap forward in capability compared with the days to weeks required of other launch vehicles.”