Category Archives: Space Station

3-D Printing the Space Colonies of the Future
Astronaut Barry Wilmore aboard the International Space Station, engineers and scientists are turning to 3-D printing as a way to build tools, spare parts, and one day, perhaps, even shelters...

By: Wall Street Journal

See more here:
3-D Printing the Space Colonies of the Future - Video

SpaceX Counts Down to Coffee Delivery and Rocket Landing
SpaceX is counting down to a Falcon 9 rocket launch that could provide a double shot of space history: delivery of the first zero-G espresso machine to the International Space Station, and...

By: wochit Tech

Read more:
SpaceX Counts Down to Coffee Delivery and Rocket Landing - Video

Weather Forces Delay for SpaceX Cargo Delivery
SpaceX had to delay the launch of a Dragon cargo capsule to the International Space Station on Monday, due to threatening clouds that came too close to the pad. The two-stage Falcon 9 was ...

By: Nirvana News

Read the rest here:
Weather Forces Delay for SpaceX Cargo Delivery - Video

Space Station Live1

By: Jamal

Here is the original post:
Space Station Live1 - Video

Liftoff of SpaceX CRS-6 - HD
The SpaceX CRS-6 Falcon 9 rocket lifts off from Space Launch Complex 40 at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station carrying a Dragon spacecraft on the sixth commercial resupply services mission to...

By: Michael500ca

Follow this link:
Liftoff of SpaceX CRS-6 - HD - Video

Nasa launch delta 4 heavy rocket
Watch carefully as this delta 4 heavy rocket blasts off to supply the international space station.

By: Random Guy Studios

Read more:
Nasa launch delta 4 heavy rocket - Video

A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket boosted a Dragon cargo ship into orbit Tuesday on a three-day flight to deliver nearly 4,400 pounds of equipment and supplies -- including an espresso machine -- to the International Space Station.

The climb to space was picture perfect, but an attempt to land the rocket's first stage on a barge stationed some 200 miles east of Jacksonville -- a key step in SpaceX founder Elon Musk's drive to lower launch costs -- was not successful. The rocket made it down to the barge, but it tipped over after touchdown.

"Ascent successful. Dragon (cargo ship) enroute to space station," Musk tweeted about 25 minutes after launch. "Rocket landed on droneship, but too hard for survival."

SpaceX tweeted photos showing the booster descending under rocket power just above the deck of the barge with its four landing legs extended. A second photo showed black smoke swirling around the base of the rocket, apparently just before or after touchdown. Musk tweeted: "Looks like Falcon landed fine, but excess lateral velocity caused it to tip over post landing."

Earlier attempts to land on the barge, named "Just Read The Instructions," were not successful due to to stormy weather and problems with stabilizing fins needed to help control the descent. SpaceX fixed the technical issues, but pulling off a successful landing remains an elusive goal.

For his part, Musk has never promised better than 50-50 odds for the initial landing attempts. But in a tweet earlier this week, he said he hopes the company can achieve an 80 percent success rate by the end of the year, after gaining experience through multiple flights.

And in any case, Tuesday's landing try was a strictly secondary objective. The primary goal of the flight was to get the Dragon cargo ship into orbit and safely on its way to the International Space Station. And that part of the mission went off without a hitch.

The first stage of a SpaceX Falcon 9 booster descends toward touchdown on an offshore landing barge. Company founder Elon Musk tweeted the rocket landed "too hard for survival."

SpaceX

Read more from the original source:
SpaceX launches cargo to ISS, fails landing attempt

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) SpaceX will have to wait another day to deliver groceries and an espresso maker to the International Space Station.

Fast-approaching storm clouds prevented the unmanned rocket from blasting off Monday afternoon. The company will try again Tuesday afternoon, but more bad weather is forecast. The odds of acceptable conditions are just 50-50.

SpaceX halted the countdown at the 2-minute mark as a menacing storm system moved into the 11-mile keep-out zone surrounding the Falcon rocket. The company had a single second to get off the ground.

"We were in a race, but we didn't quite make it today," a SpaceX launch commentator said.

The SpaceX supply ship holds more than 4,000 pounds of food, experiments and equipment. Italy provided the specially designed espresso machine for Italian astronaut Samantha Cristoforetti, who arrived at the space station last November.

The espresso maker was supposed to fly in January, but ended up on backlog following another company's launch explosion last year. That accident left the space station's pantry a little emptier than NASA would prefer. The space agency is trying to get back toa six-month reserve on food.

Once the cargo ship flies, SpaceX will try to land the leftover booster on an ocean barge. It will be the third such landing attempt for the California company led by billionaire Elon Musk. SpaceX aims to reuse the first-stage boosters that are normally thrown away, to make spaceflight more affordable.

Musk said via Twitter on Monday that he was holding the odds of a successful rocket landing at less than 50 percent. On Sunday, one of his top officers put the odds at 75 percent to possibly 80 percent.

The company failed in January on its first effort to fly a first-stage booster to a platform floating off Florida's east coast and land it vertically. The booster's steering system ran out of hydraulic fluid, and the booster hit too hard and fell off in a fiery explosion. Rough seas forced the February attempt to be called off at the last minute. Sea conditions were much better Monday, and the platform was tweaked in the meantime to be more stable.

The platform is dubbed "Just Read the Instructions." It will remain on location in the Atlantic, off Jacksonville.

Follow this link:
Space station grocery run stalled by storm clouds

A successful-landing party will have to wait, but Space Exploration Technologies Corp. (SpaceX) can celebrate the successful launch of its sixth cargo mission to the International Space Station on Tuesday.

The launch, originally scheduled for late Monday afternoon, was scrubbed about three minutes before liftoff as lightning-laced storm clouds closed in on the launch site at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station on Florida's east coast.

Instead, on Tuesday, SpaceX's Falcon 9 rocket lifted off at 4:10 p.m., Eastern time, and roughly 11 minutes later, the spent second stage released the Dragon cargo capsule on its journey. Dragon is slated to arrive at the space station Friday morning.

"It was a spectacular launch, and everything looks to be on track" for the capsule's arrival Friday morning, said Dan Hartman, NASA's deputy program manager for the space station, during a postlaunch briefing early Tuesday evening.

But SpaceX's attempt to soft-land the Falcon 9's nearly spent first stage on an autonomous barge some 200 miles off of Cape Canaveral failed. The company is trying to perfect the approach as part of its quest to drive down the high cost of launching payloads to space. The goal: to have a fully reusable rocket.

Everything looked good as the booster descended under its own power, said Hans Koenigsmann, SpaceX's vice president for mission assurance. The booster accurately targeted the barge but came down "a little bit too hard," he said.

SpaceX's team will analyze the data to see what went wrong, but Dr. Koenigsmann said he remains optimistic that the team eventually will nail it.

"It's a matter of finding the right parameters. I don't think there's something fundamental" at fault, he said.

Dragon is carrying more than 2.2 tons of cargo to the space station under a $1.6 billion, 12-mission station-resupply contract with the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. A second company, Orbital Sciences Corp., also is under contract for resupply missions. But it is still recovering from a launch explosion last October that destroyed one of its space station-bound rockets and its cargo. It was the company's third out of eight planned resupply missions under a $1.9 billion contract with NASA.

Dragon's cargo includes nearly 1,900 pounds of science experiments and supporting hardware. More than 40 of the experiments are aimed at answering questions about the effects of long-duration stays in space on the human body and on human behavior.

Here is the original post:
SpaceX Dragon capsule successfully launches, but return of booster goes awry

ISS International Space Station flying over our Planet Earth [HD 1080p]
Earth seen from space. International Space Station flying over our beautiful Planet Earth.

By: sebastiansz

Read more:
ISS International Space Station flying over our Planet Earth [HD 1080p] - Video