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SpaceX Dragon cargo craft heads to space station

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SpaceX launched its Dragon spacecraft, loaded with supplies and scientific experiments to the orbiting station.

Days after receiving a contract to build spacecraft that will ferry astronauts to the International Space Station, SpaceX launched its Dragon spacecraft, loaded with supplies and scientific experiments to the orbiting station.

This marks the fourth mission that SpaceX, a company that says it one day wants to build cities on Mars , has flown to the space station. Its first test flight launched in May 2012.

"There's nothing like a good launch. It's just fantastic," said Hans Koenigsman, vice president of Mission Assurance for SpaceX, in a statement. "From what I can tell, everything went perfectly."

The rocket lifted off at 1:52 a.m. ET on Sunday from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida. The SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket flew on a path roughly paralleling the East Coast of the U.S., according to NASA.

Once the first and then the second-stage engines fell away from the spacecraft, the Dragon's pair of solar-array wings unfurled, recharging the spacecraft's batteries.

Dragon is now in the midst of a two-day trip to the space station. It is expected to rendezvous with the orbiter Tuesday morning.

European Space Agency astronaut Alexander Gerst and NASA astronaut Reid Wiseman are expected to use one of the space station's robotic arms to grab onto Dragon and maneuver it to latch onto one of the station's ports.

The cargo craft is carrying supplies for the station, as well as the elements needed for about 255 scientific experiments.

Dragon is also carrying the first 3D printer taken into space. NASA scientists want to test whether astronauts traveling in deep space would be able to produce spare parts, tools and possibly even food on the fly. On the space station, the 3D printer could produce needed parts for the station, instead of waiting for them to be shipped into orbit on a cargo craft.

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SpaceX Dragon cargo craft heads to space station

SpaceX rocket to deliver new payloads to ISS

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SpaceX plans to launch its next International Space Station resupply rocket early Saturday morning, carrying hurricane-monitoring equipment and science materials for experiments from Sanford-Burnham Institute, the University of Central Florida and a golf club company.

The Falcon 9 rocket is set to blast off from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station at 2:16 a.m. Saturday with 5,000 pounds of equipment and supplies, in SpaceX's fourth private-sector delivery of goods to the space station. On Thursday NASA was projecting a 50 percent chance of good weather.

The star payload is a weather monitoring instrument called "RapidScat." Once attached to the space station, it will globally measure Earth winds on the oceans. It replaces and improves on several weather satellites that either are old, failing or failed.

"The biggest impact that it will have is this ability to close the gap on seeing things that change quickly like hurricanes. Right now it can happen and it does happen that the [available satellite technology] will completely miss a hurricane as it is intensifying," said Ernesto Rodriguez, NASA RapidScat scientist.

"This is especially important not as it approaches land, where we have airborne facilities, but when it is forming and actually starting to move."

Among medical science materials are those to study bone density and muscle loss in space; research with rodents, fruit flies and yeast; and several specimen plates that Sanford-Burnham is sending to use micro-gravity to study how chemical compounds bind with human blood antibodies.

With that, "You can ask the more complex question of how drugs interact in a micro-gravity," said Dr. Siobhan Malany, Sanford-Burnham's chemical-biology team leader.

In addition, UCF physics professor Joshua Colwell is testing low-energy collisions of dust particles, to better understand planet formation.

The payload also includes more commercial technology, such as a 3-D printer sponsored by Made In Space Inc., a company founded by UCF graduate Jason Dunn. It will give astronauts the ability to create needed spare parts in space, and to study what micro-gravity does to 3-D manufacturing.

There also will be a metal-plating technology experiment sponsored by the sporting goods company COBRA Puma.

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SpaceX rocket to deliver new payloads to ISS

SpaceX Dragon v2 Selected to Transport U.S. Astronauts to the Space Station – Video

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SpaceX Dragon v2 Selected to Transport U.S. Astronauts to the Space Station
SpaceX Dragon Version 2 to Transport U.S. Astronauts to the International Space Station. The Dragon version 2 spacecraft in development by SpaceX of Hawthorne, California, will advance beyond...

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SpaceX Dragon v2 Selected to Transport U.S. Astronauts to the Space Station - Video

SpaceX launches space station cargo ship

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A time exposure captures the trajectory of a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket as it boosted a Dragon cargo ship into orbit for a two-day flight to the International Space Station. SpaceX

A SpaceX cargo ship packed with more than 5,100 pounds of equipment and supplies -- including 20 mice, a 3D printer, an environmental sensor to measure ocean winds and even an experiment that could lead to better golf clubs -- blasted off early Sunday on a two-day flight to the International Space Station.

Running a day late because of stormy weather Saturday, the 208-foot-tall Falcon 9 rocket roared to life at 1:52 a.m. EDT (GMT-4) and quickly climbed away from launch complex 40 at the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, arcing away to the northeast directly into the plane of the space station's orbit.

The Falcon's nine Merlin 1D first stage engines appeared to perform smoothly, generating 1.3 million pounds of thrust to boost the rocket and its payload out of the dense lower atmosphere.

The first stage fell away just under three minutes after liftoff and the rocket's second stage, powered by a single Merlin engine, ignited to complete the trip to orbit.

The Dragon cargo ship was released into an initially elliptical orbit with a high point, or apogee, of about 224 miles and a low point, or perigee, of around 124 miles. A few moments later, the capsule's two solar arrays unfolded and locked in place.

"Nothing like a good launch," said Hans Koenigsmann, SpaceX vice president of mission assurance. "It's just fantastic. We worked very hard yesterday, and the weather wasn't quite playing along. Today it was beautiful, the weather cleared up in time, the rain dissipated and from what I can tell at first glance, everything was really perfect."

He said the Dragon capsule's thrusters were working normally and "from the SpaceX team, everybody's really happy, everybody's delighted. There's going to be a party!"

If all goes well, the Dragon's flight computer will carry out a carefully timed sequence of rocket firings over the next two days to catch up with the station in its roughly circular 260-mile-high orbit, pulling up to a point about 30 feet from the lab complex early Tuesday.

At that point, the capsule will go into stationkeeping mode and the lab's robot arm, operated by European Space Agency astronaut Alexander Gerst, will lock onto a grapple fixture to complete the rendezvous. The arm then will pull the Dragon in for berthing at the Earth-facing port of the forward Harmony module.

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SpaceX launches space station cargo ship

Cargo ship with 3-D printer bound for space station – NASA's Maven explorer arriving at Mars after year

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Published September 21, 2014

September 21, 2014: In this framegrab provided by NASA, the SpaceX cargo ship lifts off, rocketing toward the International Space Station. (AP Photo/NASA TV)

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. A SpaceX cargo ship rocketed toward the International Space Station on Sunday, carrying the first 3-D printer for astronauts in orbit.

In all, the unmanned Dragon capsule is delivering more than 5,000 pounds of space station supplies for NASA.

Dragon should reach the space station Tuesday. It's the fifth station shipment for the California-based SpaceX, one of two new commercial winners in the race to start launching Americans again from home soil.

The space station was soaring over the South Pacific when the SpaceX Falcon 9 thundered into Florida's pre-dawn sky. Sunday's weather was ideal for flying, unlike Saturday, when rain forced a delay. The rocket was visible for nearly three minutes as it sped out over the Atlantic, with the Orion constellation as a backdrop.

"What a beautiful morning it was," said Sam Scimemi, NASA's space station division director.

Sunday was a red-letter day for NASA in more ways than one.

Besides the flawless launch, the space agency's Maven spacecraft was on the verge of reaching Mars. The robotic explorer was scheduled to go into orbit around Mars late Sunday night.

The space station-bound 3-D printer was developed by Made in Space, another California company. It's sturdier than Earthly models to withstand the stresses of launch, and meets NASA's strict safety standards. The space agency envisions astronauts one day cranking out spare parts as needed. For now, it's a technology demonstrator, with a bigger and better model to follow next year.

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Cargo ship with 3-D printer bound for space station - NASA's Maven explorer arriving at Mars after year

International Space Station Fast Facts and Timeline

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(CNN) Heres a look at what you need to know about the International Space Station (ISS), a spacecraft built by a partnership of 16 nations.

The 16 nations are the United States, Canada, Japan, Russia, Brazil, Belgium, Denmark, France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Norway, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland and the United Kingdom.

At full capacity, the almost one-million-pound space station will include six laboratories and provide more research space than any spacecraft ever built. There will be enough living space for a crew of seven.

The ISS includes three main modules connected by nodes: the U.S. Laboratory Module Destiny, the European Research Laboratory Columbus, and the Japanese Experiment Module Kibo (Hope). Each was launched separately and connected in space by astronauts.

The ISS weighs 924,739 lbs (419,456 kilograms)

Habitable Volume: 13,696 cubic feet (388 cubic meters)

Solar Array Length: 239.4 feet (73 meters)

There have been 180 spacewalks conducted in support of space station assembly, totaling almost 1,130 hours.

The space station has been visited by 214 individuals.

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International Space Station Fast Facts and Timeline


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