Launch News SpaceX Falcon 9 F3 COTS2+ Updates

[SpaceNut]

You can't honestly say that. SpaceX has received a substantial amount of money from the US governement (and that one is not against SpaceX, but against the idea that paying taxes to help great achievements is bad).

The big achievement here is that SpaceX designed, built, and tested their machine without input from NASA. Also, much of what SpaceX has received has been for finishing development of the safety systems to meet the safety issues for manned flights in the future.

Musk has had his fair share of failures, especially early on, and if the 4th flight (the first successful one) didn't go, they wouldn't have had the funds to mount a 5th flight.

Sure, NASA is kicking in money to SpaceX, Orbital, and others to help them along the development path, but at the end of the day, SpaceX is selling launches at fixed rates that beat what NASA spends to do the same thing.

 

[Ripley]

SpaceX employees cheering Falcon9 liftoff!

 

[RGClark]

This will be regarded as a seminal moment in spaceflight, for it will point the way to how low cost spaceflight can be realized world-wide, the commercial approach.

Bob Clark

 

[Codz]

Semi-commercial...

 

[RGClark]

Semi-commercial...

I don't care what is the equation between private and government financing that allows SpaceX to cut development costs by 90% over usual government financed space projects. It's the way to go for the future affordable development of spaceflight.


Bob Clark

 

[Ark]

So, any word on the total, actual cost of that launch? How close are they to actually being cheaper than the status quo?

 

[anemazoso]

So, any word on the total, actual cost of that launch? How close are they to actually being cheaper than the status quo?

Ya know, thats a darn good question. I watched all of the press confrences over the last couple of days and considering how many reportes asked questions you would think one of them would have asked it.

One indication that they are keeping to their prices may be the fact that SpaceX has sold at least 27 rocket launches at the presumably advertised price which is stated on their site. And considering the visibility of the production facility they are indeed building these rockets.

 

[Cosmic Penguin]

Amazing footages!

[ame="http://vimeo.com/42841718"]Reaction in mission control to successful grapple by the ISS[/ame]

[ame="http://vimeo.com/42616884"]SpaceX Employees Cheering Elon Musk[/ame]

 

[Urwumpe]

Notice the amount of mice at CAPCOM's station. :blink:

Looks not much different to our CAE workstations here at work in the number of keyboard/mouse pairs. It is simpler switching a monitor to a new input source than getting a USB switcher for keyboard and mouse.

 

[Cosmic Penguin]

NASA TV is now broadcasting the hatch opening of the Dragon live.

 

[N_Molson]

The hatch opened quite easily.

Astronauts (wearing masks and googles) are checking that the atmosphere composition is ok, and inspect the capsule interior. They will wait around 20 minutes before removing protective headgear to make sure the air of the capsule is completely mixed with the air of the station.

SATURDAY, MAY 26, 2012
0956 GMT (5:56 a.m. EDT)

Astronauts are inspecting the inside of the Dragon spacecraft now, wearing masks and eye protection. The official hatch opening time was 5:53 a.m. EDT (0953 GMT) as the space station flew over the Tasman Sea between Australia and New Zealand.

SATURDAY, MAY 26, 2012
0953 GMT (5:53 a.m. EDT)

Astronaut Don Pettit has opened the Dragon hatch and entered the spacecraft.

SATURDAY, MAY 26, 2012
0951 GMT (5:51 a.m. EDT)

Mission control just gave the crew a "go" for hatch opening.

 

[orbitingpluto]

Now to see if the crew can find the hidden cheese wheels.

 

[SMan]

Really happy for the SpaceX guys and NASA. I've been following this from their first launch attempt last weekend. Fantastic to be able to follow their journey on twitter and NASA TV. A very important step for us all I feel.

 

[FADEC]

The interior of Dragon looks like it just perfectly fits to the ISS (style).

Now I really can't wait to see seats in it and crews that meet aboard the ISS

Semi-commercial...

That's right. NASA spends about 50% of SpaceX's expenditures for years as far as I know.

SpaceX does do nothing special actually, except one important thing: the USA now got a working launch vehicle plus a working capsule that is designed to be used as a manned vehicle too, with the capability to reenter the atmosphere after returning from deep space mission profiles. All this for a few hundred million USD development costs. And low operating costs. With the costs for SpaceX's ISS resupply missions one could have launched one and a half Space Shuttles missions.

In comparison: development of Ares I swallowed 20 billion USD as far as I know. Besides a launch of a modified Shuttle SRB with mockups on top, and some changed infrastructure on the ground for developing something that likely was not going to lift off anyway, the USA did not get a lot.

 

[N_Molson]

Off-topic alert

fftopic:

Should be posted in the "NASA Future : the war..." thread.

This thread should be dedicated to the COTS2+ mission updates, and only that.

 

[Eccentrus]

well, when they got a brand new capsule over, do they get the "spanking new car" smell as well? :lol:

 

[anemazoso]

Don Pettit - First human o occupy a commercial spacecraft in space.

SpaceX Dragon - First commercial spacecraft to fly in space with a human in it.

Lots of good "firsts".

Now anything any other commercial company does with be following in the footsteps of SpaceX. At least for the next 10 yrs.

 

[Capt_hensley]

Looks not much different to our CAE workstations here at work in the number of keyboard/mouse pairs. It is simpler switching a monitor to a new input source than getting a USB switcher for keyboard and mouse.

We use 8 and 16 station DVI/USB KVMs, but there are times when you should just use a single console per computer. I would think that something as important as monitoring a space flight that you would want a single console per telemetry computer, Johnson MCC has a back room(the ACC), with dozens of computers in a rack, all setup with cat5 KVM consoles, only 6 work station operators monitor a dozen systems each, these backup the primary systems in the MCC, all feeds from the systems are multiplexed to multiple systems throughout the bldg. NASA does nothing well, except put in redundancy.

 

[Codz]

NASA does nothing well, except put in redundancy.

:facepalm:

 

[Capt_hensley]

:facepalm:

I thought someone would like that...

Does anyone know what will be flown back to earth?