SpaceX Launches Dragon Supply Ship to ISS
Falcon 9 first stage descends toward its landing pad. (Screen shot from SpaceX webcast)
SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket roared off NASA’s historic Pad 39A on Sunday morning, marking a rebirth of a complex that once hosted the launches of Apollo moon ships and space shuttles.
The booster lifted off on time at 9:39 a.m. EST carrying a Dragon resupply ship bound for the International Space Station. The Dragon separated from second stage as planned and unfurled its two solar arrays. It will take two days to catch up to the space station.
The Falcon 9’s first stage landed safely at the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station. On board video showed the rocket’s engine firing as the stage touched down on its concrete landing pad.
This flight was the first from Pad 39 since the space shuttle was retired in 2011. SpaceX has a 20-year lease on the launch complex.
8 responses to “SpaceX Launches Dragon Supply Ship to ISS”
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The big gamble of leasing out NASA facilities to private launch providers has proven to be a major success. Maybe now Congress-critters will see the folly in repeatedly gutting CCDev and throw their support behind private spaceflight.
Re: “Maybe now Congress-critters will see the folly in repeatedly gutting CCDev and throw their support behind private spaceflight.”
I think they already have. We haven’t heard much anti-commercial crew rhetoric for over a year now, and the last budget finally fully funded (albeit through a bit of a trick) the commercial crew funding request.
Also, It seems that all the talk with the transition to the new administration absolutely includes commercial providers and public-private partnerships as a significant part of the path forward. Basically, it appears to me that we’ve gotten over a hump.
But yeah, it’s unfortunate that there was so much congressional resistance with getting the program going. They were explicitly warned that not fully funding would produce a significant (around a year long) delay each time, and now, surprise, here we are still working ourselves through those very delays.
CCDev is supposed to be finally, funded. I actually believe elon that SpaceX will have this done next year.
CONgress needs to fund doing a COTS for 2 habitats to be added to ISS. This would allow them to deck them out.
It’s pretty crazy how good the landing video has gotten — now we can watch live as the 1st stage flies the whole way back from space all the way to land, with no video dropouts. You can see the whole damn thing
meh.
They had it that good back in grasshopper time.
I think that land landings are going to always be spot on.
It is the ship landing that is the issue.
I continue to say that they need to stabilize the barge with vertical stabilizers.
HOWEVER, I noticed that they are redesigning the legs.
Considering that the stage appears to land fairly dead center, then decent legs might make the difference.
Though I still feel that vertical stabilizer are more important. After all, once it lands, if the barge is a rocking, it could tip.
Notice the landing was no longer labelled as “experimental” on the Launch Events progress bar.
I think that is just to save display space. It wasn’t labeled “experimental” on the last couple of landings.
It could still tip. If you ever see how they chain down battle tanks on a ship, you start to understand how even the heaviest things can be tossed around. Factor in some wind and things can get very exciting.