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"NASA'S Charles Bolden, left, and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk stand next to the Dragon capsule in June in McGregor, Texas."
[quote](CNN) -- The SpaceX Dragon has splashed down in the Pacific Ocean after a three-week flight to the International Space Station, completing the first commercial cargo mission to Earth's orbit, NASA announced Sunday.
The unmanned capsule came down about 250 miles west of Baja California at 3:22 p.m., the space agency reported. The craft was launched October 7, the first of a dozen flights to the space station planned under a contract with NASA.
The craft carried nearly 900 pounds of supplies to the station and returned with nearly 1,700 pounds of freight, mostly used hardware and scientific research material. The reusable craft has been loaded onto a ship and was carried back to shore Sunday afternoon, SpaceX said.
NASA chose SpaceX's Falcon 9 launch vehicle and the Dragon spacecraft to resupply the space station in 2008. The space agency has retired its fleet of space shuttles and plans to turn much of its focus toward exploring deep into the solar system.
"With today's mission, we've closed the loop and demonstrated that American industry is ready to step up to the plate and meet our needs for transport to low Earth orbit," NASA Administrator Charles Bolden said in a statement issued after splashdown. "This work will transform our relationship to space, save money and create jobs. America remains the leader in space and technology development."
Another company, Orbital Sciences, is expected to launch its own demonstration flight to the space station within months under a contract with NASA. And SpaceX is one of three aerospace firms now vying for a contract for manned flights into orbit, along with Sierra Nevada and Boeing.
The mission was completed despite the failure of one of the nine engines on the Falcon 9 booster rocket that carried it into orbit. SpaceX said the engine failed 79 seconds after liftoff, but the remaining engines kept the craft headed for the space station as flight computers made the necessary adjustments.
However, a prototype communications satellite that the Falcon 9 carried as a secondary payload did not end up in its designated orbit. The satellite's builder, New Jersey-based Orbcomm, said controllers were able to successfully test the device's systems before it fell out of orbit and plans to launch two more of them aboard SpaceX rockets by 2014.
SpaceX said it was studying flight data with NASA to figure out what happened, "and we will apply those lessons to future flights."
Elon Musk: A pioneer in space and on Earth
News from the cosmos lands at CNN's Light Years blog[/quote]
[url=http://www.cnn.com/2012/10/28/us/spacex-dragon/index.html]SOURCE[/url]
Woo science!
I'm still amazed at the Falcon 9 rockets engineering.. It's systems can correct an engine-out automatically, re-adjust to continue on the same trajectory and compensate for the lost thrust.
Fucking wizardry.
[QUOTE=Bradyns;38227702]I'm still amazed at the Falcon 9 rockets engineering.. It's systems can correct an engine-out automatically, re-adjust to continue on the same trajectory and compensate for the lost thrust.
Fucking wizardry.[/QUOTE]
I love engineering on this level as well. Redundancy and fail safes to the max when dealing with something this important.
Woo the new space race will be between private companies. The cost of kg on orbit will crash down ! There are already at least a dozen private companies with cargo vehicles under development
[QUOTE=Bradyns;38227702]I'm still amazed at the Falcon 9 rockets engineering.. It's systems can correct an engine-out automatically, re-adjust to continue on the same trajectory and compensate for the lost thrust.
Fucking wizardry.[/QUOTE]
Yeah it's impressive, but due to one of the engines failing, I think it lacked enough thrust to finish its secondary mission, which was putting up a satellite made by Orbcomm into orbit. I'm not really sure how it works, but I guess it used up extra fuel to compensate for the lost engine, and therefore didn't have enough to bring the satellite into desired orbit.
[QUOTE=Maucer;38227737]Woo the new space race will be between private companies. The cost of kg on orbit will crash down ! There are already at least a dozen private companies with cargo vehicles under development[/QUOTE]
Space Race 2
now with capitalism
[QUOTE=Swebonny;38227878]Yeah it's impressive, but due to one of the engines failing, I think it lacked enough thrust to finish its secondary mission, which was putting up a satellite made by Orbcomm into orbit. I'm not really sure how it works, but I guess it used up extra fuel to compensate for the lost engine, and therefore didn't have enough to bring the satellite into desired orbit.[/QUOTE]
It had to place the satellite into a lower than intended orbit because of a safety check required by NASA which was set to protect the ISS
[editline]edit[/editline]
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[QUOTE=Swebonny;38227878]Yeah it's impressive, but due to one of the engines failing, I think it lacked enough thrust to finish its secondary mission, which was putting up a satellite made by Orbcomm into orbit. I'm not really sure how it works, but I guess it used up extra fuel to compensate for the lost engine, and therefore didn't have enough to bring the satellite into desired orbit.[/QUOTE]
What happened to it? Did it just fall back down to earth?
I was hoping they'd at least leave it attached to the dragon and temporarily park it at the iss or something.
*Nevermind this was answered above
[QUOTE=Bradyns;38227702]I'm still amazed at the Falcon 9 rockets engineering.. It's systems can correct an engine-out automatically, re-adjust to continue on the same trajectory and compensate for the lost thrust.
Fucking wizardry.[/QUOTE]
Isn't this standard on most modern rockets.
[QUOTE=laserguided;38228000]Isn't this standard on most modern rockets.[/QUOTE]
No because no other rocket in use has multi-engine-out capability. If they lose an engine, they lost the rocket and don't need to calculate a new trajectory, etc.
[QUOTE=FunnyBunny;38227996]What happened to it? Did it just fall back down to earth?
I was hoping they'd at least leave it attached to the dragon and temporarily park it at the iss or something.
*Nevermind this was answered above[/QUOTE]
[URL=http://phys.org/news/2012-10-orbcomm-satellite-falcon-fallen-earth.html]It already reentered.[/url]
[QUOTE=Pelf;38227987]It had to place the satellite into a lower than intended orbit because of a safety check required by NASA which was set to protect the ISS[/QUOTE]
Ah right, Space X wanted to still do the orbit but NASA was a bit scared.
[QUOTE=Pelf;38228022]No because no other rocket in use has multi-engine-out capability. If they lose an engine, they lost the rocket and don't need to calculate a new trajectory, etc.[/QUOTE]
I'm quite sure that is not the case on Soyuz.
it brought back astronaut blood and urine...
[QUOTE=laserguided;38228000]Isn't this standard on most modern rockets.[/QUOTE]
Not really, but the old Saturn V could survive one engine failure.
[QUOTE=laserguided;38228044]I'm quite sure that is not the case on Soyuz.[/QUOTE]
From what I can gather online, it doesn't have that capability. I could be wrong but I can't find any information to say that it does.
[QUOTE=Pelf;38228111]From what I can gather online, it doesn't have that capability. I could be wrong but I can't find any information to say that it does.[/QUOTE]
I thought one of the reasons it was so reliable was because it could handle engine failures. I know there were missions where the engines failed but as precaution they aborted instead of continuing.
Now let's get something good from NASA themselves.
[editline]28th October 2012[/editline]
[QUOTE=Swebonny;38228061]Not really, but the old Saturn V could survive one engine failure.[/QUOTE]
The Saturn V was absolutely astonishing. I wish NASA would just dust the plans off and toss some modern electronics on it as an interim until they get something entirely new ready to go. I'm actually a bit jealous of my parents on this one, they got to watch a few of those things launch on TV.
[QUOTE=koeniginator;38227884]Space Race 2
now with capitalism[/QUOTE]
suddenly hats
[QUOTE=Maucer;38227737]Woo the new space race will be between private companies. The cost of kg on orbit will crash down ! There are already at least a dozen private companies with cargo vehicles under development[/QUOTE]
[img]http://www.indiegames.com/gameofthemonth/images/ccbanner.jpg[/img]
[QUOTE=Swebonny;38227878]Yeah it's impressive, but due to one of the engines failing, I think it lacked enough thrust to finish its secondary mission, which was putting up a satellite made by Orbcomm into orbit. I'm not really sure how it works, but I guess it used up extra fuel to compensate for the lost engine, and therefore didn't have enough to bring the satellite into desired orbit.[/QUOTE]
It didn't lose an engine. They said it was actually just some sort of thing that was supposed to break off because of pressure change or something. I remember reading the article in the thread about it when it launched and everyone was shitting bricks about it.
[QUOTE=T2L_Goose;38228848]It didn't lose an engine. They said it was actually just some sort of thing that was supposed to break off because of pressure change or something. I remember reading the article in the thread about it when it launched and everyone was shitting bricks about it.[/QUOTE]
[QUOTE]Approximately one minute and 19 seconds into last night’s launch, the Falcon 9 rocket detected an anomaly on one first stage engine. Initial data suggests that one of the rocket’s nine Merlin engines, Engine 1, lost pressure suddenly and an engine shutdown command was issued. We know the engine did not explode, because we continued to receive data from it. Panels designed to relieve pressure within the engine bay were ejected to protect the stage and other engines.[/QUOTE]
[QUOTE=koeniginator;38227884]Space Race 2
now with capitalism[/QUOTE]
Space Race will thrive under capitalism better then it would under any form of government.
[QUOTE=Swebonny;38228061]Not really, but the old Saturn V could survive one engine failure.[/QUOTE]
Shuttle could as well, as long as it made it through the SRB stage
[QUOTE=Pelf;38229298][/QUOTE]
Ohhh, it just didn't blow up. Got it.
I wonder when SpaceX will consider developing large "space guns" that launch things into orbit. They could also probably do well to consider R&Ding affordable durable shuttlecraft.
[QUOTE=koeniginator;38227884]Space Race 2
now with capitalism[/QUOTE]
but because it's capitalism China's gonna have to counter it with communism
and then USA's gonna have to be one step ahead of China in everything as usual
i wish
[QUOTE=The Rifleman;38227645]Woo science![/QUOTE]
Yeah it's lovely how engineering is the same as science in your little world
[QUOTE=DrLuckyLuke;38236361]Yeah it's lovely how engineering is the same as science in your little world[/QUOTE]
Well the two really are closely intertwined..
[QUOTE=ironman17;38233547]I wonder when SpaceX will consider developing large "space guns" that launch things into orbit. They could also probably do well to consider R&Ding affordable durable shuttlecraft.[/QUOTE]
SpaceX won't. They're a rocket company.
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