LZ-1

All posts tagged LZ-1

Scheduled Launch of CRS-20 on March 6 Marks Swan Song for OG Dragon

Posted by Chris Tobias on March 4, 2020
Posted in: Launches. Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , . Leave a comment
666px-SpaceX_CRS-20_Patch

image: commons.wikimedia.org

by Chris Tobias

When a Falcon 9 rocket lifts off from Space Launch Complex 40 (SLC-40) at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida in the waning minutes of March 6, it will mark not only the twentieth commercial resupply mission to the International Space Station, but also the final flight of SpaceX’s original, uncrewed Dragon capsule.

CRS-20 will be the final mission under the original Commercial Resupply Services contract that was signed with NASA in 2008, but the overwhelming success of the program has already led to a second contract, which will include not only SpaceX, but also Sierra Nevada and Northrop Grumman (formerly Orbital ATK).

Liftoff for CRS-20 is scheduled NET Friday, March 6 at 11:50 PM EST (Saturday, March 7, 4:50 UTC).

The Falcon 9 booster for this mission also flew the nineteenth commercial resupply mission to the ISS, and the Dragon capsule for this mission is a veteran of both the CRS-10 and CRS-16 resupply missions.  SpaceX plans to recover the first stage of the Falcon 9 at Landing Zone 1 (LZ-1) at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station.

Dragon will deliver nearly three tons of supplies and science investigations to the ISS, and will eventually return with a similar cargo at the completion of its mission.

Take Back the SkyThis will be the final mission of SpaceX’s “D1” version of Dragon (the original, uncrewed capsule that features prominently in Take Back the Sky’s logo).  All subsequent missions will be flown with Crew Dragon, which will soon become the first US spaceship to launch from American soil with American astronauts aboard since the end of the Space Shuttle program in 2011.

It is Crew Dragon that we hope Elon Musk and SpaceX will name after Serenity, the Firefly-class transport ship in Joss Whedon’s short-lived but much beloved science-fiction television series Firefly and critically acclaimed motion picture Serenity.  With a crewed demonstration flight of Crew Dragon (DM-2) likely to happen no later than this summer, our campaign to lobby for the name is obviously in its endgame, so if you agree that the ship should have this name, please send a card or letter to SpaceX founder and CEO Elon Musk and/or president and COO Gwynne Shotwell and tell them so ASAP.

And if you’d like to watch the final, historic flight of the OG Dragon, SpaceX’s webcast of the mission should go live approximately 20 minutes before launch at spacex.com and on the company’s YouTube channel.

Peace, love and rockets…

CRS-18: SpaceX Dragon Takes Flight for the 20th Time

Posted by Chris Tobias on July 19, 2019
Posted in: Launches. Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , . Leave a comment

by Chris Tobias

It’s hard to believe that the SpaceX Dragon capsule will be heading out to the black for the 20th time this coming week.

It doesn’t seem all that long ago that we experienced the excitement of that first commercial resupply mission to the International Space Station in October of 2012, almost one month to the day after Take Back the Sky was founded to convince Elon Musk and SpaceX to name the crewed version of the Dragon capsule after Joss Whedon’s fictional transport ship Serenity from the TV series Firefly.

CRS18

image courtesy Wikipedia

Now, a little less than seven years later, the Dragon is about to make its 20th flight and its 18th operational delivery flight to the ISS, with liftoff scheduled NET Sunday, July 21 at 7:32 PM EST (23:32 UTC) from Space Launch Complex 40 (SLC-40) at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station.

As with the previous resupply missions, this one will deliver supplies, equipment and science investigations (a.k.a. experiments) to the ISS.  Astronauts aboard the station will also be able to send completed experiments and equipment that is no longer needed or in need of repair back to Earth when the capsule makes its return trip.

Even though these Dragon resupply missions will soon number three dozen, they should not be taken for granted or regarded as routine.  Each one is a unique opportunity for NASA, the ESA, Roscosmos, JAXA and other space agencies of the world to do some pretty mind-blowing science.  According to officials at Johnson Space Center, this particular mission will carry equipment and science investigations that will allow astronauts to test the ability to print human tissues and study the process of biomining in microgravity, as well as develop innovative bone healing therapies.  Goodyear Tire will also test the limits of silica fillers in microgravity in an attempt to improve the manufacture and performance of its tires (putting a real emphasis on the “commercial” in Commercial Space).  Other investigations will study how bacterial life adapts to long-term space travel, which might yield data that could lead to new therapies for diseases like Parkinson’s and Multiple Sclerosis. 

Over 40 of the experiments delivered on this mission were developed by students and educators.  Many of these will utilize “MixStix,” tiny mixture enclosure tubes that use clamps to keep fluids or solids (such as chemicals or biological materials) separate until they are released in space, allowing the contents to mix.

The Dragon will also deliver a new docking adapter that will add another docking port for future US Commercial Crew vehicles (Crew Dragon, Starliner, Dream Chaser, etc.).  This International Docking Adapter, designated IDA-3, will help convert the older shuttle-era Androgynous Peripheral Attach System-95 (APAS-95) docking systems on the ISS’s Pressurized Mating Adapter-2 and 3 (PMA-2 and PMA-3) docking ports into the newer International Docking System Standard (IDSS) style.  IDA-3 is identical to the first International Docking Adapters, IDA-1, which was destroyed when the Falcon 9 that was carrying the Dragon of CRS-7 experienced an in-flight anomaly and was lost, and IDA-2, which has already been installed on the ISS.  (IDA-2 was the docking port for Crew Dragon on her DM-1 mission.)  IDA-3, which was constructed mainly from spare parts, will be extracted from the Dragon by Canadarm2 and and permanently installed by astronauts during an EVA (“spacewalk”) next month.

The Falcon 9 booster core for this mission also carried the last Dragon into orbit for the CRS-17 mission and was recovered aboard SpaceX’s drone ship Of Course I Still Love You.  After it takes this Dragon out to the black, it will return to Landing Zone 1 (LZ-1) at Cape Canaveral.

If you’d like to watch this launch, SpaceX’s usual webcast should go live approximately 20 minutes before liftoff at spacex.com and on the company’s YouTube channel.

Peace, love and rockets…

SpaceX Falcon Heavy Set to Make Its Third Flight with STP-2 Mission

Posted by Chris Tobias on June 21, 2019
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by Chris Tobias

SpaceX is targeting this Monday for the first night launch of the Falcon Heavy.  The four-hour launch window for liftoff is set to open NET June 24 at 11:30pm EST (3:30 GMT June 25), with a back-up launch window 24 hours later if necessary.

STP-2

STP-2 Mission Patch (courtesy USAF)

The mission, which will launch from LC-39A at Kennedy Space Center in Florida, will carry 24 satellites into the black for the U.S. military, NOAA, NASA, and various academic institutions, inserting them into either low or medium Earth orbits.  It will require no less than four upper-stage engine burns, more than any SpaceX launch vehicle has ever done, and SpaceX founder and CEO Elon Musk tweeted on June 19, “This will be our most difficult launch ever.”  The satellites themselves are designed for missions ranging from weather observation to technology demonstration.

Dubbed Space Test Program-2 (STP-2), the mission is being overseen by the US Air Force.  It will use a combination of reflown and new boosters, with the two side boosters having previously flown on the most recent Falcon Heavy flight April 11.  (The center core booster for the STP-2 mission was recently rolled out from SpaceX’s factory in Hawthorne, California.)  This will be the first time the Air Force has used previously-flown hardware for a military satellite launch, something which it agreed to do in order to learn more about SpaceX’s process of launching and recovering rockets before allowing the Falcon Heavy to launch more expensive national security satellites (potentially with reused boosters).

As with previous Falcon Heavy missions, SpaceX plans to recover all three first-stage boosters post-launch.  The two side boosters will land at LZ-1 and LZ-2 at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, and the center core booster will be recovered at sea aboard SpaceX’s drone recovery ship Of Course I Still Love You, which will be stationed in the Atlantic just off the Florida coast.

For those who wish to see what promises to be a visually spectacular night launch of the Falcon Heavy, SpaceX’s webcast of the launch should go live at spacex.com and the company’s YouTube channel approximately 20 minutes before liftoff.  With military payloads involved, it is possible that the webcast may conclude before all payloads have deployed, but that shouldn’t get in the way of any “ooh”-and-“ahh”-inspiring moments when Falcon Heavy lights up the night sky as she breaks atmo!

Peace, love and rockets…

SpaceX Continues Its Dance with Dragons: CRS-17 Launch Now May 3

Posted by Chris Tobias on April 30, 2019
Posted in: Launches. Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , . Leave a comment
800px-SpaceX_CRS-17_Patch

CRS-17 Mission Patch (Courtesy:  Wikipedia)

by Chris Tobias

SpaceX planned to launch its 17th resupply mission to the International Space Station from Space Launch Complex 40 (SLC-40) at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in the early morning hours of Wednesday, May 1, but now the launch will have to wait until NET Friday, May 3 so that NASA can troubleshoot a problem with an electrical distribution unit on the International Space Station.

When the mission does finally break atmo, a previously unflown Block 5 Falcon 9 will insert Dragon into Low Earth Orbit, where it will rendezvous with the ISS and deliver over 5,500 pounds of supplies, experiments and equipment to the astronauts of Expedition 59 aboard the space station.

The logistics of this particular mission certainly have been fluid.  The first stage of the booster was originally scheduled to land at Landing Zone 1 (LZ-1) at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, but the Falcon 9 will now land at sea aboard the SpaceX drone ship Of Course I Still Love You due to the ongoing investigation at LZ-1 into the anomaly that occurred there during a Crew Dragon abort system test on April 20.  During that incident, which occurred as SpaceX was testing the Crew Dragon’s eight SuperDraco abort engines, the capsule that made Crew Dragon’s first demonstration flight (DM-1) to the ISS on March 2 of this year was lost.

Yes, this is the very same Crew Dragon that we here at Take Back the Sky want Elon Musk to name after the transport ship Serenity from Joss Whedon’s cult sci-fi TV series Firefly, and of course we still hope to convince SpaceX to christen a future Crew Dragon with that name.

But in the meantime, the OG Dragon is now scheduled to lift off NET 3:11 AM EST (7:11 GMT) on May 3.  The current forecast shows the weather as being 60% go for launch.  For those night owls who want to watch it live, SpaceX’s webcast of the CRS-17 launch should go live approximately 20 minutes before liftoff at spacex.com and on the company’s YouTube channel.  

Peace, love and rockets…