Category Archives: Space Station

A private Dragon space capsule is poised for a weekend launch to the International Space Station with the first big cargo shipment ever aboard an unmanned American spacecraft.

The gumdrop-shaped Dragon spacecraft, built by the commercial spaceflight company SpaceX, will blast off on Sunday (Oct. 7) from a launch pad at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida. Liftoff is set for 8:35 p.m. EDT (0035 Monday GMT), with a planned arrival at the station set for on Wednesday (Oct. 10).

SpaceX and NASA mission managers met Friday to review the preparations for the Dragon flight atop its Falcon 9 rocket, ultimately giving the mission a final "go" for launch. There is a 60 percent chance of good weather for launch.

"It's going to be a very exciting night on Sunday," SpaceX founder Elon Musk said during a Google+ hangout event with NASA chief Charles Bolden today ahead of the review. "I always get kind of nervous before these flights, thinking, like 'What have we missed?'" [SpaceX's Dragon Poised to Sunday Launch (Photos)]

Musk said he and his SpaceX team have done their best to ensure a successful launch Sunday, and while there is always the chance of something going wrong, "I feel like we've done everything we can to make the mission as successful as possible, and I hope people enjoy watching it."

Private delivery for space station

The Dragon mission, the first official cargo run by a private American-built spacecraft, is a watershed flight for NASA and SpaceX. The Hawthorne, Calif.-based company has a $1.6 billion deal with NASA for at least 12 resupply missions to the space station using its robotic Dragon capsules and their Falcon 9 rocket boosters.

The deal is part of NASA's Commercial Resupply Services (CRS) program. With the retirement of NASA's space shuttle fleet last year, the space agency is depending on the availability of new private space taxis to provide unmanned cargo deliveries to the station, as well as ferry American astronauts to and from low-Earth orbit.

Another U.S. company, the Virginia-based Orbital Sciences Corp., has a $1.9 billion agreement to fly at least eight resupply missions to the station using its own Antares rockets and Cygnus spacecraft, and plans to launch a rocket test flight later this year. But SpaceX is the first of the two firms to actually launch vehicles to the International Space Station.

In May, SpaceX (short for Space Exploration Technologies) launched a different Dragon capsule and Falcon 9 rocket on a test flight to the station. That mission demonstrated SpaceX's ability to launch Dragon to the station, have it rendezvous with the orbiting lab safely, and then be captured for docking using a robotic arm controlled by astronauts inside the outpost. [SpaceX's 1st Dragon Flight to Space Station (Video)]

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Private Dragon Spacecraft 'Go' to Launch Space Station Cargo Sunday

Ice cream is blasting off for the crew of the International Space Station (ISS).

The frozen confectionery not the freeze-dried souvenir version sold in museum gift shops is packed on board the first NASA-contracted commercial mission to resupply the orbiting laboratory.

The Commercial Resupply Services-1 (CRS-1) mission is scheduled to lift off on a Space Exploration Technologies (SpaceX) Falcon 9 rocket on Sunday (Oct. 7) at 8:35 p.m. EDT (0035 GMT Oct. 8) from Launch Complex 40 at the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida.

The ice cream, which is now a not-so-secret surprise for the station's current three member crew, was confirmed as on board SpaceX's Dragon cargo capsule by NASA after a pre-launch press conference Saturday (Oct. 6) raised the possibility that it was included.

"We talked about flying ice cream," said NASA's manager for the space station program, Michael Suffredini. "We try to bring up what we call 'bonus food' for the crew, and this is one of those flights that will have that." [Space Food Photos: What Astronauts Eat in Orbit]

GLACIER goodies

The vanilla with swirled chocolate sauce ice cream cups won't melt on their three-day journey to the space station thanks to a freezer on board the Dragon capsule.

"We're very excited," SpaceX president Gwynne Shotwell told reporters. "This is the first time we are taking powered cargo up. We are taking up a GLACIER freezer, which has refrigerated science samples in it."

The GLACIER, or General Laboratory Active Cryogenic ISS Experiment Refrigerator, is primarily used to preserve science samples that require temperatures between minus 301 and 39 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 160 and 4 degrees Celsius) on the way to or from the space station. The mini-fridge sized freezer previously flew aboard the space shuttle.

"Having been on a flight that had an empty freezer on it going up into space, we did fill it [with ice cream] and it's really nice!" Robert Cabana, former shuttle astronaut and the director of NASA's Kennedy Space Center, said.

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Astronaut Ice Cream: Frozen Dessert Launching to Space Station

A piece of space junk that may buzz the International Space Station Monday has NASA weighing plans to move the orbiting lab, even as a private space capsule stands poised to launch toward the station on Sunday night.

The space debris will pass near enough to the space station on Monday morning (Oct. 8) to require an avoidance maneuver as a safety precaution, NASA space station program manager Mike Suffredini said in a briefing today (Oct. 6).

The decision on whether to move the station is not yet final, but if such a maneuver is required it will not affect the scheduled launch of a private Dragon space capsule to the station, Suffredini said.

Built by the private spaceflight company SpaceX, the unmanned Dragon spacecraft is set to launch Sunday night at 8:35 p.m. EDT (0035 Monday GMT) from a pad at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida. The spacecraft is packed with about 1,000 pounds (453 kilograms) of supplies for the space station's three-person crew, including food and science gear.

"I can't imagine a scenario in which we ask SpaceX not to launch," Suffredini said.

Suffredini said that if the space station does have to dodge the debris, it would likely just mean SpaceX's Dragon will take a bit longer to arrive than planned. Currently, the spacecraft is due to dock at the station on Wednesday (Oct. 10). [SpaceX's Dragon Poised to Sunday Launch (Photos)]

"They'll just adjust while they're flying if we have to do the move," Suffredini said.

NASA and its space station partners regularly move the space station when a piece of debris is expected to pass inside a preset safety perimeter. That safety zone is shaped like a pizza box and extends out 15 miles (25 kilometers) to either side, as well as a half-mile (0.75 km) above and below the station.

SpaceX's Dragon flight to the space station is the first commercial cargo delivery to the outpost under a $1.6 billion deal with NASA. That agreement calls for SpaceX to provide at least 12 cargo missions to the station using its robotic Dragon space capsules and Falcon 9 rockets.

The Hawthorne, Calif.-based SpaceX flew a successful demonstration flight to the station in May that set the stage for Sunday night's launch. Another company, Orbital Sciences Corp. of Virginia, is developing its own private rocket and spacecraft to fly cargo to the station under a $1.9 billion deal with NASA.

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NASA Tracking Space Junk Ahead of Private Launch to Space Station

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) A private company is on the verge of launching another cargo ship to the International Space Station.

On Sunday night, California-based SpaceX will attempt to send a Dragon capsule to the orbiting lab and its three-member crew.

Liftoff of the company's unmanned Falcon rocket is scheduled for 8:35 p.m. EDT. Forecasters put the odds of acceptable weather at 60 percent. Thick clouds and rain are the main concerns.

A Dragon cargo ship successfully docked to the space station last May, but that was considered a test flight. The coming mission is the first under a $1.6 billion contract with NASA that calls for a dozen resupply flights by SpaceX, essential in the post-shuttle era.

"We got there once. We demonstrated we could do it, so there might be a teeny, teeny bit of relaxation. Not a lot, though," SpaceX President Gwynne Shotwell told reporters Saturday night.

NASA was monitoring a potentially threatening piece of orbiting junk, but said that even if the space station had to steer clear of the object, that would not delay the SpaceX mission.

This newest Dragon will haul about 1,000 pounds of food, clothes and gear, including ice cream for the American, Russian and Japanese astronauts on board. (The ice cream will go up in freezers meant for research). Even more cargo will be coming back.

The capsule will remain docked to the space station for most of October. Astronauts will fill the capsule with blood and urine samples, other experiments and old equipment, for its return to Earth at the end of the month. By then, the complex will be back to a full crew of six.

The nearly 500 tubes of blood and syringes of urine have been stashed in space station freezers since the last space shuttle flight, by Atlantis, in July 2011. The decommissioned Atlantis, and sister ships Discovery and Endeavour, are now museum relics.

NASA nutritionist Scott Smith said these blood and urine samples part of medical studies will be the first to be returned since Atlantis' final voyage.

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Private space station delivery to launch Sunday

The first-ever year-long mission to the International Space Station will launch in 2015 and feature an American-Russian crew, NASA revealed today (Oct. 5).

Two astronauts one Russian and one American will launch together in spring 2015 on an experimental endurance mission that will last twice as long as current stays aboard the orbiting lab. The main goal is to gather data that will help lay the groundwork for manned flights to destinations in deep space, officials said.

"In order for us to eventually move beyond low-Earth orbit, we need to better understand how humans adapt to long-term spaceflight," NASA's Michael Suffredini, International Space Station program manager, said in a statement. "The space station serves as a vital scientific resource for teaching us those lessons, and this year-long expedition aboard the complex will help us move closer to those journeys."

The announcement confirms speculation that has been bubbling for several months. Earlier this week, a Russian space official claimed the marathon mission was a done deal, but until today NASA had simply said that such a flight was under consideration. [Most Extreme Human Spaceflight Records]

Launching two astronauts means that one seat on the mission's three-person Soyuz spacecraft may be available for another crewmember. On Oct. 10, British singer Sarah Brightman will make a "groundbreaking announcement" about space travel, and some observers speculate that she or somebody else may be taking the Soyuz' third seat as a space tourist.

During the 12 years that people have lived continuously aboard the space station, scientists have learned a lot about how microgravity affects the human body. They've documented significant effects, for example, on bone density, muscle mass, strength and vision.

But that information has been based on orbital stays that lasted a maximum of six months. Studying astronauts on a year-long mission should yield even greater insights into crew health and performance, researchers said.

"We have gained new knowledge about the effects of spaceflight on the human body from the scientific research conducted on the space station, and it is the perfect time to test a one-year expedition aboard the orbital laboratory," said Julie Robinson, NASA's program scientist for the International Space Station. "What we will gain from this expedition will influence the way we structure our human research plans in the future."

NASA has a keen interest in learning how the human body holds up for long stretches in space, for the agency is currently working to send astronauts to a near-Earth asteroid by 2025 and Mars by the mid-2030s. A manned roundtrip journey to Mars could take around two years, according to some mission concepts.

Neither NASA nor the Russian Federal Space Agency, which is known as Roscosmos, has revealed who the two astronauts will be. A few months ago, however, Russia's Interfax news agency reported that the NASA crewmember could be Peggy Whitson, who recently stepped down as the agency's chief astronaut to rejoin its active spaceflying ranks.

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One Year In Space: US-Russian Crew Launching Audacious Spaceflight in 2015

Hawthorne-based rocket maker SpaceX is poised to return to the International Space Station with its Dragon spacecraft to carry out the first contracted cargo resupply flight in NASA's history.

SpaceX performed a successful demonstration mission to the space station in May, showing NASA that the company could do the job. SpaceX has secured a $1.6-billion contract to carry out 12 such cargo missions, and Sunday's mission would be the first.

SpaceX's Falcon 9 rocket is set to blast off at 8:34 p.m. EDT Sunday from Space Launch Complex 40 at Cape Canaveral, Fla., carrying the Dragon capsule packed with 1,000 pounds of food, water and supplies.

"I'm still quite nervous about it because it's just our second mission to the station," Elon Musk, SpaceX's 41-year-old billionaire founder and chief executive said. "We're hoping that this mission goes as smoothly as the last one."

With last year's retirement of the space shuttle fleet, NASA is eager to give private industry the job of carrying cargo and crews, in hopes of cutting costs. Meanwhile, the space agency will focus on deep-space missions to land probes on asteroids and Mars.

Another aerospace firm, Orbital Sciences Corp. of Dulles, Va., is nipping at SpaceX's heels with a test flight of its commercial rocket set for later this year. Orbital has a $1.9-billion cargo-hauling contract with NASA. The company is running tests on its Antares rocket at a launch pad at NASA's Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia for a separate resupply mission.

Critics, including some former astronauts and members of Congress, have voiced concerns about NASA's move toward private space missions. They contend that private space companies are risky ventures with unproven technology and say that the missions should be handled by NASA flight-proven hardware.

But SpaceX, formally known as Space Exploration Technologies Corp., has quieted many opponents after its successful demonstration mission, though it still faces opposition.

"A SpaceX failure back then, or indeed a slip-up on the next launch, would give ammunition to congressional critics, who in many cases are trying to bring home the bacon for their own constituents," said Tim Farrar, president of the consulting and research firm Telecom, Media & Finance Associates Inc. in Menlo Park, Calif. "Continued success on SpaceX's part makes it much harder to argue for continuing to invest in traditional contracts."

During that nine-day demonstration, the Dragon spacecraft rendezvoused with the $100-billion space station and tested sensors and processors by linking up with the orbiting outpost's onboard computers.

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SpaceX ready to resupply space station

Cape Canaveral, Florida (Reuters) - Space Exploration Technologies, the first private company to fly to the International Space Station, is poised to launch its initial cargo mission to the orbital outpost as part of a $1.6 billion contract with NASA to deliver supplies.

Liftoff of the company's Falcon 9 rocket and Dragon capsule is scheduled for 8:35 p.m. EDT on Sunday (0035 GMT Monday) from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida.

If successful, the company, founded and run by Internet entrepreneur Elon Musk, will restore a U.S. supply line to the station that was cut off by the retirement of the space shuttles last year.

Since then, NASA has been dependent on Russian, European and Japanese freighters to service the station, a permanently staffed research laboratory that flies about 250 miles above Earth.

In May the firm, also known as SpaceX, made a practice run to the $100 billion orbital outpost, a project of 15 countries, clearing the way for the first of 12 cargo runs.

SpaceX is one of two firms hired by NASA to deliver cargo to the station.

Its other contractor, Orbital Sciences Corp., on October 1 rolled out its first Antares rocket to a new launch pad on Wallops Island, Virginia, for an engine test-firing slated for this month or early November.

The rocket is scheduled to make its debut flight before the end of the year.

Orbital also plans a practice run to the space station, similar to what SpaceX did when its Dragon ship docked at the station. If all goes well, Orbital will be cleared to begin work on its $1.9-billion NASA contract to fly cargo to the station.

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SpaceX set for its first cargo run to space station

The Canadian-built robotic arms built for NASA's space shuttle fleet and the International Space Station are about to get two new siblings.

Last week, the Canadian Space Agency showed off the Next-Generation Canadarm (NGC) prototypes, which were unveiled after three years of development at Canadian company MacDonald, Dettwiler and Associates. The mechanical limbs are the successors to the shuttle fleet's Canadarm and station's Canadarm2, which played pivotal rolls in the station's construction for more than a decade.

The CSA and MDA plan to use this technology to position Canada for newer space business opportunities in areas such as in-orbit refuelling of satellites, said Gilles Leclerc, the agency's director-general of space exploration.

"We prepared all these new systems so that we will be well-positioned for the next thing in space," Leclercsaid.

However, the Canadian government's $53.1 million contribution to the arm project (as well as supporting testbeds and simulators) has only brought them to the prototype stage so far. The arms will require more money for launch configurations and a ride to orbit.

Fuelling competition

One of the prototype arms spans 49 feet (15 meters), the same length as the space station's Canadarm2. But the new arm is lighter and has two sections that telescope into each other. This makes it more suitable to fold up inside the smaller spacecraft of the future. [Photos: Building the International Space Station]

The other NGC prototype arm is a miniature, at 8.5 feet long(2.58 meters). Like the station's Dextre robot, which it is modelled after, it will be able to refuel satellites, grapple tools and manipulate items such as blankets that cover satellites.

Manufacturer MDA has spent several years touting the benefits of satellite refuelling, which the company says would save money since satellites could be kept aloft longer if they can receive more after launch.

In March 2011, MDA signed a $280 million agreement with Intelsat SA to advance this concept, but the deal was scuppered in January 2012 after receiving lukewarm interest from potential customers.

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Canada Unveils Next-Generation Robotic Arms for Spaceships

A private company is headed back to the International Space Station.

On Sunday night, SpaceX will attempt to launch another Dragon capsule full of food, clothes and science experiments for the astronauts at the space station. The company hopes to repeat the success of its test flight in May.

Rainy weather could keep the company's Falcon rocket grounded. Forecasters said Thursday there's a 60 per cent chance of favourable conditions for the 8:35 p.m. launch from Cape Canaveral.

This is the California company's first official launch under a $1.6 billion contract with NASA. The contract calls for 12 deliveries.

The Dragon will spend a few weeks at the space station before being cut loose at the end of October with a full load of science experiments and old equipment. It will parachute into the Pacific.

Among the items going up and coming back on the Dragon are a dozen student experiments that flew aboard the SpaceX capsule in May, but were not properly activated by the station crew. NASA offered this second chance.

NASA is counting on private business to help keep the space station stocked, now that the shuttles are retired. The governments of Russia, Japan and Europe also provide periodic supply runs.

A second company, the Virginia-based Orbital Sciences Corp., hopes to launch its Antares rocket with a mockup capsule by the end of this year, out of Wallops Island. The first test flight to the space station, by Orbital Sciences, is targeted for early 2013.

SpaceX or Space Exploration Technologies Corp. is run by PayPal co-founder Elon Musk, who's also the chief executive officer of the electric car-maker, Tesla Motors. He is working to modify the Dragon capsule in order to carry astronauts back and forth to the space station, within three to five years. Americans currently hitch rides on Russian rockets.

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Space station-bound SpaceX rocket to launch Sunday

The Dragon capsule being attached to Falcon 9 rocket last Sunday.

The first launch of a new space era is scheduled to take place on Sunday night as SpaceX prepares to deliver its first NASA-contracted cargo load to the International Space Station.

Sundays launch known as Commercial Resupply Services-1 will mark the first of 12 contracted flights for SpaceX, totaling $1.6 billion. Like the space start-ups previous launch and ISS test-docking from earlier this year, the company will use a Falcon 9 rocket and Dragon spacecraft to deliver about 1,000 pounds to the ISS and bring back more than 1,200 pounds of research equipment and supplies.

Sundays scheduled launch is for 8:35 PM EDT. The company performed a static firing of the nine Merlin engines last Saturday, and on Tuesday went through final rehearsal with the entire vehicle being transported to the launch pad and lifted to its vertical positioning.

So far SpaceX has had two successful orbital flights with the Falcon 9 and Dragon spacecraft. Though the company reminds everybody that space travel is incredibly complicated, from launch to recovery. There was a technical setback before the launch for the demonstration flight in May, where asmall mechanical failure within the turbo-pump feeding fuel to the engine caused the launch to be aborted less than one second before liftoff. The scrubbed first attempt was a reminder that theres more than a few wires and a simple four-cylinder under the hood.

Now the 157-foot-tall Falcon 9 and Dragon are mated together (pictured above) in the adjacent hangar at Launch Complex 40 at Cape Canaveral in Florida awaiting final preparations ahead of the launch. With the nighttime launch, the day will be filled with final cargo being loaded into the Dragon on Sunday morning.

Seven and a half hours before launch, the switch is turned on for Falcon 9 and Dragon. With systems and computers powered up, the launch pad is evacuated and the rocket is autonomously fueled a little less than four hours before launch. The liquid oxygen tank is filled first and the RP-1 (kerosene) is topped off afterwards. Because the liquid oxygen is constantly venting from the tanks, it is continuously topped off before the launch occurs.

With 10 minutes and 30 seconds left to launch, the terminal countdown begins. At this point the systems are autonomous. There are three separate teams that must give the go-ahead during the countdown, with NASA mission control in Houston and SpaceX mission control in Hawthorne, California both polled to make sure everything looks good on their screens. With everybodys approval and two minutes and 30 seconds left on the clock, the launch director gives the final go-ahead for liftoff.

At Cape Canaveral, the Air Force range safety officer will make sure the physical area at the launch pad and surroundings are clear, and at 8:34 PM EDT, one minute before launch, the flight computer is activated. Five seconds later the water deluge system will inundate the launch pad with a flow rate of 30,000 gallons per minute. The water acts as a liquid blanket to suppress the acoustic waves that are produced by the engines during ignition.

With three seconds left on the clock, the nine Merlin engines will ignite producing 850,000 pounds of thrust to lift the Falcon 9 and Dragon spacecraft off of the pad and up towards orbit.

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How SpaceX Will Keep the Space Station in Business