SpaceX's Dragon capsule fell to a soft landing in the Pacific Ocean just after 2 p.m. to complete a hugely successful first demonstration flight a historic achievement for the commercial spaceflight industry. The spacecraft launched from Cape Canaveral at 10:43 a.m. EST atop a 157-foot Falcon 9 rocket that was making just its second flight.
The capsule was deployed in orbit a little over nine minutes later and completed nearly two trips around the planet, flying 186 miles high at a 34-degree angle relative to the equator. From a mission control center in Hawthorne, Calif., SpaceX teams tested guidance, propulsion and communications systems on the first operational Dragon.
At 1:15 p.m., four Draco thrusters began a six-minute firing to begin the Dragon's drop from space. Atmospheric re-entry began around 1:40 p.m., as the capsule's heat shield deflected temperatures exceeding 3,000 degrees Fahrenheit.
Company updates on Twitter confirmed that parachutes had deployed and a successful splashdown, which was targeted for 500 miles west of the U.S-Mexican border.
At the mission control center, company founder and CEO Elon Musk reportedly threw his arms in the air in celebration. No video or images of the landing was immediately available.
The company declared 100 percent success for on-orbit operations.
A fleet of ships was deployed to recover the capsule. NASA's Freedom Star solid rocket booster recovery ship was also working to recover the Falcon 9's first stage from the Atlantic, where seas were rougher. There was no immediate word on its condition.
The landing culminates a historic flight for SpaceX, founded in 2002, as it became the first commercial company to return a spacecraft from orbit. Only five nations and Europe have accomplished that feat, the company noted.
The mission completes the 17th of 22 milestones that SpaceX is working to meet before beginning station resupply flights as soon as next November. Meeting the milestone earned the company another $5 million payment from NASA's Commercial Orbital Transportation Services program, or COTS. NASA has now paid SpaceX $258 million of the $278 million it is eligible for under the program.
Two more demonstration flights are planned, but SpaceX hopes to consolidate them so that the next one would berth at the spac station. That may be an easier sell to NASA after the apparent great success of today's flight.
IMAGE: At top, recovery crews work on the Dragon capsule. Credit: Credit: Michael Altenhofen/SpaceX. Below: A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket and Dragon spacecraft blasted off from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station at 10:43 a.m. today. Credit: Michael R. Brown, Florida Today.
31 comments:
Congratulations to SpaceX !!
DRGAON ???
WTF ???
LMAO
Go SpaceX!
The future is here and it's in Cape Canaveral!
Nothing like a good Splash down
ABSOLUTELY AMAZING!!!! Job well done! That's how you do spaceflightnow! Glad to see there is still some good 'ol classic American ingenuity out there!
the finest popgun money can buy...a few notches up from an Estes rocket.
This is a great day for SpaceX, and an apparently total success. They still have some work to do, there always is after any flight, but now it is more than reasonable to assume SpaceX will achieve COTS success...and eventually that they will also provide manned flight to LEO.
At the same time, this successful launch ratchets up the pressure on Orbital Sciences to equal it. They aren't terribly far behind. OSC received the first stage of their first Taurus II bird at Wallops yesterday, and their "risk reduction" test flight is scheduled for early 2011.
Not sure what 2:55 anonymous is talking about. That sure looked like a real rocket to me. Excellent job SpaceX! Now go pop open a few cold ones!
Clearly their product is better than any solution NASA has come up with. In a little over 5 years they went from zero to a functioning system with around $200 million in government input. Constellation and Ares spent $3 or 4 billion and have an SRB with an overpriced capsule.
The future is clearly commercial because the government cannot do this..
Get real constellation wasn't just going to go into LEO, to the space station.It was intended for DEEP space exploration too. And that requires far far more sophistication than this vehicle can offer.(Hence the billions required to develope it) This is NOT the replacement for it.You cannot and nver wil do DEEP SPACE travel on the cheap,it simply doesn't work that way.Deep space requires a national effort on a grand scale.
I just hope we can find a solution for deliving cargo and people to the ISS that is based on US soil... Hopefully we can come up with a solutoin before our only national transportation to the ISS (the Space Shuttle) retires... Probably will not happen in that short amount of time but it doesn't sound like they planned this out very well, when they canceled the shuttle program before the USA had its own vehicle to take us to the ISS...
Pamela, u just saw that solution in action today.
Does anybody know when the next scheduled launch for the Falcon 9 will be ...I missed this one and want to see the next one in person
Does anyone know the name of the Pacific Ocean recovery ship?
This is a terrific achievement for Space X. A hardy congratulations to the all the people that made it happen. Looking at the photo, hopefully that isn't the only capsule retrieval vessel. If so, they need more budget. Lastly, does anyone know if they plan on using a crew escape system on the flights that are intended for cargo to ISS only? Seems they would want a test flight with that system before manned flights. Or, is that a different launch system all together?
Now we know how SpaceX does it for so little money. They hire Somali pirates for the recovery fleet. ;-)
congrats and nice job Space X.... from a soon to be laid off Shuttle worker..
one small step for man...backwards !
I was at the Cape watching this tin can launch and the last thing I thought was "this is progress"
Agree with Graham and others this isn't Constellation but it's a nickle in the pocket for LEO viability. I haven't seen any cost per lb. figures yet but it's probably slightly lower than shuttle, maybe, considering that shuttle can lift 20 to 30 times as much weight in one mission.
Any way it's a feather in the cap for SpaceX and we should all be tooting a whistle for them, as least a little bit. It doesn't give me goose bumps or anything like that because after all Dragon is just another small cargo carrier or a Soyuz type manned capsule good for ups and downs from LEO.
Love the Somali Pirates comment!! :-)
This is a very bad joke. We have come from manned orbital flight to landing men on the moon, building a space station and placing payloads in space that are larger than the rockets that carry them (because we have to assemble them by hand)..
Touting this as a success is nothing more than urinating on our flag, AND the American people who have funded it.
The American space program has sunk to a new low today. I am ashamed.
historic day move over shuttle there's a new sheriff in town.
Raise taxes to where they were when men were landing on the moon and we might be able to afford to do it again.
Space flight ain't cheap and neither are the two wars we're fighting right now. Add in an extra $700 billion in tax cuts for the top 2% and we're running a high tab before space flight even enters the budget.
If you are old enough to have seen the moon launches and you don't mind giving up your social security and medicare, we might be able to start funding a new moon program.
Anyone ask if the first stage was retrieved? Nope that’s because it wasn't. This is only one of the tricks here people for low cost space travel. This is something, but on the other hand, nothing we haven't done before (i.e. 58 years ago V2 rockets; Germany)! Everybody is all giddy over something our parents, grandparents or even great grandparents witnessed! Somebody from SpaceX please answer me....how long until you can retrieve 1st stage and man rate this rocket??? Otherwise we're back at square 1. Oh by the way...we paid for all of this...not commercial??!! Damn wake up! Russia and China sure has!! Also, this is not from somebody who is out of work from KSC, but instead has truly experienced Low Earth Orbit.
@11:22 PM
"Touting this as a success is nothing more than urinating on our flag, AND the American people who have funded it.
The American space program has sunk to a new low today. I am ashamed."
Really? Just how bitter a little man do you have to be to write THAT?
Yeah, I love how the usual suspects are painting this as a success. Why, because one of Obama's biggest contributors launched it ? This is like a bad rerun. What's next, are we going to put a chimp in the capsule ? Should we invent Tang now ? Extolling the virtues of a system like this while we let the Ares program die is so much clap trap.
7:50 so I suppose an Orion unmanned test flight proposed for 2013 which would basically mimic this flight profile would on the other hand be touted as a great success and proof CxP is on the path to success. No, the usual suspects are the ones downplaying this as much as possible. Where were you all when CxP was first proposed? You know - CAPSULES splashing into the ocean and such?
My, my, such thinly veiled hypocrisy.
While this project was backed by the president you didn't vote for, your partisan bias should not interfere with honoring good science and achievement. Shame everything is politics now for the small minds.
Congratulations SpaceX on the successful demo flight!!!
"That's one small step toward the continuation of & one giant leap for SpaceX without government politics" from a laid off Shuttle Worker.
awesome!! the u.s can now launch cheese into orbit.cute little hobby elon!
Post a Comment