SpaceX’s Dragon cargo vessel successfully splashed down in the Pacific Ocean just under six hours after departing the International Space Station. The trip was entirely nominal. As usual, SpaceX CEO Elon Musk kept followers up to date via Twitter: “Recovery ship has secured Dragon. Powering down all secondary systems. Cargo looks A ok.” The capsule now travels to Los Angeles [...]
Post Tagged with: “Dragon”
Dragon Postponed Reentry to March 26 Due to Weather Conditions
The SpaceX Dragon space capsule is scheduled to return to Earth on March 26, after docking at the International Space Station (ISS) for more than three weeks. “The actual removal of Dragon from the space station begins at 4:05 a.m. [EDT], with release scheduled for 6:56 a.m. Dragon will conduct a series of engine burns to take it away from [...]
‘Driving’ Satellites: A Complex Undertaking, Not a Cheap Date
By Michael Mackowski I have the privilege of working in the space industry as a power subsystem engineer for Orbital Sciences in Gilbert, Arizona. On February 11, 2013 the Landsat Data Continuity Mission (aka Landsat 8) spacecraft was launched and I was at the NASA Goddard mission operations center monitoring performance of this satellite that Orbital built for NASA and the [...]
Another ‘Successful Failure’ for SpaceX
By Rand Simberg On its last trip to the International Space Station (ISS), the SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket lost an engine in ascent, losing a little performance but achieving orbit anyway. On Friday’s flight, the Falcon seems to have performed flawlessly in delivering the Dragon capsule to orbit. This time, it was the Dragon itself that failed, at least initially. Normally, [...]
A Week Of Glitches: Dragon, Curiosity, and ATV-4
It’s been a week full of glitches in the space sector. As well as the series of faults that prevented Dragon from making its timely rendezvous with ISS on 2nd March, it has been reported that Curiosity and ESA’s ATV-4 have run into some difficulties. On February 28th, the ground team for NASA’s Mars rover Curiosity at the Jet Propulsion [...]
Orbital Delivery: Complete Guide to Unmanned Cargo Spacecraft
The International Space Station gets it supplies from an ever-growing array of unmanned cargo ships, including the Japanese HTV, the European ATV, the Russian Progress, and the commercial Dragon that just rendezvoused with ISS after a brief thruster scare. There are yet more on the way, with the next ship to launch being Orbital Sciences’ Cygnus demonstration mission, now that [...]
Dragon Berths With ISS After Thruster Problems
SpaceX’s Dragon cargo capsule has successfully berthed with the International Space Station (ISS) after leaving from Cape Canaveral, on March 1. It was the first Falcon 9 launch after an anomaly occurred during launch in October 2012. Friday’s launch and planned rendezvous has not been without incident however; the unmanned Dragon successfully delivered 555 kilograms of food supplies and scientific experiments [...]
Dragon Glitch Delays ISS Delivery
Promptly at 10:10 a.m. local time, a Falcon 9 rocket carrying SpaceX’s Dragon cargo vessel made a picture perfect launch from Cape Canaveral, Florida. There was no sign of the anomaly that had disabled one of the Falcon’s nine engines on the previous mission and separation proceeded nominally. After Dragon separated, however, a new problem cropped up. The first sign [...]
Inspiration Mars: How it will Work
The buzz started well before Inspiration Mars’ February 27 press conference, but it has only gotten louder in the hours since. With little more than a feasibility study to be formally published on March 3, Dennis Tito and his conclave of they-could-actually-pull-this-off specialists have committed to send an American man and woman on a flyby mission to Mars in 2018. [...]
Inert Launch-Abort Motor Delivered for Integration with Orion
An inert launch-abort motor for NASA’s first Orion Multi-Purpose Crew Vehicle arrived at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center on February 21. The motor will be integrated with the capsule, although it will have no role in Orion’s first two flights. “The main abort motor is what we’re talking about here,” said Charles Precourt, vice president of ATK’s Space Launch Systems division and former [...]
