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SpaceX
The SpaceX Dragon capsule is prominent in this photo of the Falcon 9 rocket in its lowered position at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station's launch complex in Florida.
The first private-sector spaceship destined to hook up with the International Space Station will have to wait a few days longer than planned for its Florida launch.
SpaceX's Falcon 9 rocket had been scheduled to lift off from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station's Launch Complex 40 on May 7, on a test flight that could climax with a space station berthing of its unmanned Dragon cargo capsule several days later. A launch-pad engine test went off successfully on Monday, but more time is needed to analyze changes in SpaceX's flight software and make sure all systems are go.
"At this time, a May 7 launch appears unlikely," SpaceX communications director Kirstin Brost Grantham said in an email. "SpaceX is continuing to work through the software assurance process with NASA. We will issue a statement as soon as a new launch target is set."
Due to the orbital mechanics involved in a space station rendezvous, the Falcon 9 can be launched only at a precise time during the day, on specific dates. The next opportunity for launch comes on May 10, but it's not yet clear whether liftoff will be reset for that date. In a Twitter update, Space News' Brian Berger cited an internal NASA manifest that showed the launch slipping to no earlier than May 10. After that date, SpaceX would have to stand down to let the Russians launch a three-person crew in a Soyuz craft to the space station on May 14.
SpaceX conducts a test firing of its Falcon 9 rocket's engines on April 30 at Cape Canaveral.
California-based SpaceX has received hundreds of millions of dollars from NASA to support the development of the Falcon 9 and the gumdrop-shaped Dragon capsule for resupplying the space station. The Falcon 9 has been sent into orbit only twice before — once in June 2010 with a test capsule, and again in December 2010 with a functional Dragon spacecraft that returned to Earth after two orbits.
The upcoming demonstration launch has been rescheduled repeatedly, from February to April to May, due to the need for intensive software reviews. The flight plan calls for Dragon to execute a series of maneuvers near the space station. If the spaceship's sensors and flight systems work as designed, Dragon will then fly a rendezvous and approach. If Dragon reaches the station safely, the station's astronauts will use a robotic arm to bring the commercial spaceship in for berthing, and then unload the non-essential cargo that's aboard.
A couple of weeks later, Dragon would be sent back down to a Pacific Ocean splashdown.
A success during this first berthing attempt would open the way for SpaceX to start regular robotic resupply missions to the space station under the terms of a $1.6 billion NASA contract. It also could help pave the way for Dragon to ferry Americans to and from the space station in three to five years, depending on further NASA funding.
Since the last space shuttle left the station last July, Americans can travel into orbit only as passengers aboard Russian spacecraft, at a cost of about $60 million a seat.
More about SpaceX and the commercial space race:
- Private spaceship launch on the horizon
- SpaceX has a lofty goal: Help save humanity
- Next steps in the new space race
Last updated 3:25 p.m. ET. Tip o' the log to NBC News' Cape Canaveral correspondent, Jay Barbree.
Alan Boyle is msnbc.com's science editor. Connect with the Cosmic Log community by "liking" the log's Facebook page, following @b0yle on Twitter or adding Cosmic Log's Google+ page to your circle. You can also check out "The Case for Pluto," my book about the controversial dwarf planet and the search for other worlds.
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I love what Spacex is doing. However, so many delays I do not see them getting a greenlight until later this year. If it goes by the end of next week I will be surprised.
Canceling Constellation was a big disgrace. A part of the stimulus could have been used to finish Ares 1 and Ares 5. To leave it up to space x is too much of a risk with all our eggs in one basket. Have NASA return to the moon to stay and then when developed peel it off to private industry and move on to Mars and repeat process.
They are learning... more and more everyday. They are learning to do what only a few nations have been able to do in human history. Pretty impressive. So much is riding on this mission, I am glad to wait another 3 days, 3 weeks, or 3 months, if that is what it takes for SpaceX to get it right.
"Canceling Constellation was a big disgrace."
It was exactly the right thing to do.
"A part of the stimulus could have been used to finish Ares 1 and Ares 5."
You would not have had a manned Ares I flight many billions of dollars later in 2017, and able to do no more than Apollo 7. Ares V would have been ready...God only knows when. And able to do little more than Apollo 8, since no money had been spent on the Altair lander, long before the end of Constellation. And even with it, you'd have little more capability than Apollo landings, just all three crew on the surface, and a stay time of no more than two weeks.
Commercial Space or not, we were not getting our money's wort from Constellation...unless you were one of the major contractors, or working on it at one of the relevant NASA centers.
@ Frank Glover
Completely agreed! Constellation was a make-work program for Red-State contractors that would have shuttered if they weren't still commissioned to build Space Shuttle launch components.
The only part of spaceship222's post that I agree with is that we should have used a part of the stimulus to fund NASA and numerous public R&D ventures...might I suggest the part of the stimulus that extended the Bush tax-cuts ;P
We've had A LOT of programs that had a lot of potential to replace the space shuttle and to continue the US's reach into space. The problem started with Nixon who gutted NASA to fund the war in Vietnam and reallocate those expenditures to Defense programs, a trend that has followed with every Republican POTUS since.
I am hopeful that SpaceX will have a successful launch and this will usher in a new era for private enterprise servicing our space-needs.
What I'd really like to do is to give NASA the same level of autonomy as DARPA, raise their funding to 75% of what its relative budget allocation was during Apollo, and then to remove NASA from the category as a "discretionary budget" item that each POTUS du jour can choose to slash or re-mold in his image! We've had far too many nearly finished projects which just have to get s-canned because the new administration doesn't like them (X-33, anyone?), or NASA has to take on a project or inefficient supply-chain because Congress/POTUS need to buy favors from various districts/contractors (e.g. Shuttle/X-33/Constellation/etc.)
With better funding and proper autonomy, NASA would be able to operate more efficiently and effectively the way DARPA does! It's frustrating any time that politicians can get their grubby mitts into projects...it's still amazing that the Manhattan project was a success or that we landed on the Moon at all!
Seriously and Frank have it the nail(s) on the head, But getting congress to make NASA autonomous??? Only in our dreams!! (more's the pity)--S--
Sadly agree with Stephen on that one. If only!
Agreed! I know that there's no chance in hell of that happening. No POTUS has the clout to convince Congress to change NASA's agency charter in such a direction, and no Congress-critter is going to want to willingly give up the massive amounts of pork that NASA is currently used to rake in for their districts!
Perhaps if the Chinese land on the moon, NASA may at least go back to Apollo-era funding levels for another 25-30 years...but it seems that the majority of Americans don't value R&D and exploration into new frontiers as much as we do...fear seems to be the most effective tool to govern with! Who would have thought before the events of 9/11 that we would have allowed for such things as: The Patriot Act, Warrant-less Wiretaps, Extreme Rendition, waterboarding, and the new broad-sweeping powers that were added in the latest defense bill Obama passed?
It's amazing how things can swiftly slide in a direction when the right type of lubrication is used.
Alan, I have to say that, in my opinion, your posts are the most informative, accurate, concise, and un-biased of any posted on MSNBC. Keep up the great work, sir.
I have to concur with that assessment.
Indeed. I agree with the Dude.
Thanks ... I keep trying, don't always hit the mark, but appreciate it when folks think I do.
Alan , you should have put one more dot after thanks .... "LOL"
Thanks for the article Alan ....
Yeah, thank you Alan, good job as always, Guys, if we keep praising him, he might get complacent!! lol :)--S--
I'll second that, El.
Anyway, hope the best for SpaceX! Better safe than sorry. Also, those birds ain't cheap. They've gotten it right the first couple of times; hope they keep their record up! We need a new taxi as soon as possible!
I hope the best for them as well. In reading about them, I've learned that they are doing a great job of taking advantage of proven designs and concepts that NASA originally developed, while adding their own dose of modern engineering concepts to build in further reliability.
I'm excited to watch the launch, whenever it happens.
There are some NASA ships docked nearby in Portsmouth in support of this. It was kinda cool to see that.
I wonder what (if any) of these delays for mysterious 'software tests' are SpaceX originated, and what are NASA originated bureaucratic hand-wringing ..
I suspect that if NASA wasn't the check writing client, that SpaceX would have launched last summer..
The checkout simulations of the ISS docking software is automated.. and is just not that hard.... they should be able to do hundreds per day.... I am sure they did exactly that early last year... the russians (and japanese) have been docking unmanned vehicles at ISS for a decade.
I've heard that the SpaceX personnel are 'fit to be tied' at the wasted time/resources/dollars for these unnecessary NASA delays/tests..
I wish SpaceX could work without NASA interference, control, oversight, vetoes..... obviously so does SpaceX judging by it's efforts to get it's own launch sites.
The pattern is that what SpaceX can do own it's own.. for example design/construction of Falcon, Dragon goes amazingly well..
What SpaceX has to work with NASA on... e.g. launch permissions, docking with NASA's ISS... moves like a snail with serious serial delays..
hmmmm
Yes, I think you've hit the sense of it right ... SpaceX wants to do this expeditiously, NASA wants to do things carefully, but they all want to do it right.
My personal question is, exactly what is wrong with SpaceX's software development processes that is leading NASA to do this. THIS is what SpaceX needs to resolve. The last place you want to be changing software, a critical component in any modern system, is on the launch pad just prior to launch.
Amerman
So if the dragon capsule docking process messes up and puts a hole into the ISS, exactly who would you be blaming. The ISS is essentially NASA's property, it is most definitely NASA's responsibility. NASA is completely justified in setting the rules. The stakes are far higher than a test rendezvous mission, which can happen at any time, but replacing a major component of the station can't now that the space shuttle has been retired.
I think that's one area people really need to pay attention to in the coming years of commercial space flight development. NASA essentially had an infinite piggy bank and no need to worry about things like profitability, allowing them to focus on crew safety to a large extent. If NASA says their way of doing things is the safest, I'd be inclined to believe them. And even with the emphasis on safety, NASA still had three incidents resulting in crew loss (Apollo 1, Challenger, and Columbia).
Makes you hope that as competition in commercial launches increases, safety doesn't take a back seat to profitability.
I have some inside knowledge of the situation. I wouldn't jump to the conclusion that NASA is holding up SpaceX due to bureaucracy. Remember, this flight is several years late. Even last fall, Elon prematurely claimed SpaceX was completely ready to go before delaying the launch into 2012.
NASA is a group of very knowledgeable engineers who have experience and know what they are doing. SpaceX gets an incredible amount of government money to perform this mission, and they have to do what their customer wants.
SpaceX keeps making claims, but not delivering.
As much as I'd like to see a successful commercial space-race start, I just keep getting the feeling that, with SpaceX, I'm just watching Bullwinkle keep on trying to pull that rabbit out of his hat.
I hope I'm wrong about them, but I'm not seeing things that give me a lot of confidence in them right now.
Solomon Kane,
I see that as well, and have been saying it for years. I just think he is in over his head (Musk). I would MUCH rather him take his time up front, and then once he has his foot in the door, and is operating, rapidly accelerate his capabilities, largely through repetition. He is trying to rapidly run before he even knows how to crawl. It isn't even the setbacks, which I expect. It is the reasons for those setbacks that concern me.
Space X maybe moving along quicker than many think ....
Buggy software, the bane of modern life. Apollo reached the Moon without software. Now a contractor's rocket is grounded because of it. Not sure that's progress. It has often been said that any software program larger than one screen full of code can't be made bug free.
Apollo 11 had software. https://www.linux.com/news/software/developer/29068-apollo-11-story
johncarter,
The space shuttle software at the end was reduced to 22 known defects (IIRC), none of which were considered critical, which for something of that magnitude is about as perfect as you can get.
And Apollo most definitely had software,
Johncarter, you aren't an engineer and not a programmer from those comments.
Most airplanes today use software to fly. Airbus, Boeing modern Jets are really flying robots. The complexity of SpaceX is the same as other critical mission type of craft. No magick, just alot of engineering and testing.
This is just due dilgence.
Speaking of this - it would be very cool to see how the full flight control system works.
Go SpaceX..
The Apollo LEM was actually designed to be able to land itself on the surface of the moon. Needless to say, astronauts being military test pilots in those days, they preferred to fly it themselves.
Apollo did use numeric control routines in ROM, or loaded by hand into the flight hardware from a keypad. But those were in no way comparable to what we mean by the terms software and computer control today. The most powerful "computer" on board Apollo was a HP35 hand calculator.
john,
no, the software was NOT loaded into the computer by hand, data was loaded in by hand.
The most powerful one may have been an HP35 but the most reliable was the AGC.
"It has often been said that any software program larger than one screen full of code can't be made bug free."
Simply not true. That being said, let me lighten the discussion a bit--a joke from my old COBOL programming days: "If builders built buildings like programmers write programs, the first termite that came along would destroy civilization."
Someone help me stowaway while they are checking, I would make millions on the talk show circuit on return to pay the fines they would levy. (sarc)
Might be a bit of a chilly ride without the life support system installed lol
@ Brokinarrow
Oh come on! Don't ruin his fun! Maybe he wants to be frozen human jerky when he arrives at the ISS
lol they might get him thawed back out
He could be a perfectly preserved mascot for the ISS mounted over the Pirs Module much like there's a statue of Walt Disney perched at the gates of Disneyland!
Not sure where you picked up that idea, but it's incorrect.
To much reliance on spacex. I like them but constellation program should have been maintained. With just some of stimulus money project to return to the moon would be achieved. Then peel off to private industry. Then go to Mars and repeat.
spaceship222
Constellation was already largely cancelled by the time Obama was inaugurated, and the remaining parts were pretty much probably not going to work anyways. The 5th segment on the Ares I rocket was only a half segment because if it was a full segment, it would not have gotten off the pad due to mass. The Orion capsule wasn't getting any lighter either.
The key part that is needed from Constellation, the Orion capsule is STILL being developed, so it isn't a complete loss.
The other part of all of this is that Constellation was never intended to service the space station. It was put in there as a task for it, but as far as the administrator of NASA at the time was concerned, he had no use for the space station. He wanted to deorbit it.
Also, you shouldn't be using stimulus money (short term) to properly fund a long term project. Instead, you need to properly fund your commitments. The stimulus is just a shot in the arm, and should only ever be thought of as that.
Just man up and launch it already!
Whatever they think they can learn by delaying, they can learn better by failing!
Seeing as failing could include taking out the ISS, that is most definitely not an option.
Given the worst case scenario of possibly of damaging a $100 billion piece of hardware and killing 6 astronauts, I personally would rather they take their time.
I think it has more to do with the USAF scheduling a military satellite launch on May 3rd.
Take your time and get it right on the first try. Everyone is impatient, but the consequences are too costly.
Measure twice, cut once. Something similar to that applies here.
...and in a previous email ...
This does not sound right, does not sound like a space program. Usually, a final qualification report, including all test data is signed-off in a formal Critical Design Review (CDR) months before schedule launch date. Even Material Review Board (MRB) reports must be signed-off months before. In fact, all approved MRBs are part of the CDR closure requirements.
What SpaceX are indicating is that there are MRBs still open. So, unless it is critical for the space station to receive this payload, the launch should have been reschedule accordingly.
Either NASA is cutting vital protocol rules, again, or ISS is in trouble.
ad'm
It isn't a critical resupply mission, those are now currently handled by the other cargo supply vehicles, with the more recent ESA ATV being a recent launch and docking. This is primarily a test launch.
Based on what I am hearing, I would personally say, pull the rocket and don't put it back until the concerns are dealt with. This is just sounding more and more like a fly by night operation. SpaceX isn't going to get the commercial business that they need to survive long term with practices like this.
Ad'M - You're right to question the process. I sometimes wonder if SpaceX runs like a Silicon Valley startup: deliver product (any product) with bugs to the market and work them out over time.
It's a tough model to apply to aerospace, since the consequences of failure are enormous.
Skoonk. That is EXACTLY how it is being run. It isn't being run like the system is potentially a life critical system. That is the reason why NASA's systems cost so much, because they spend the money on life critical system requirements and verification.
Musk's background in starting up PayPal and that he isn't an engineer, he is a physicist. Personally I think he is in over his head, and have thought so for a while. I just hope that nobody loses their life as a result of it.
You understand that Elon isn't doing this alone, that he hires engineers, right?
Just like any other aerospace entity.
Frank,
Yeah, I realize that, but then he gets into his other problem, his level of hubris is just blinding. When he was talking about the changes, he speaks of it as though HE is making the changes, not the organization. There is a lot more going on that I find concerning than just that one comment.
Frank,
See the SpaceX open positions.
MelJM - /sigh, if only I didn't have to move to california or texas for some of these jobs...
Hey! There's nothing wrong with CA, we've got great weather, great food, and lots of attractions. If you have a good work pedigree or a decent education, you can be quite successful here :)
/Speaking from experience
Too many people out there, I like my country life here in Iowa :-) And lots of silly laws in Cali as well.
Fair enough! Though we've got lots of open space out here as well, but the silly laws I can't make an excuse for...however, I would say our laws are less silly, and more terrible.
I've been behind these guy's since the begining but............................GEEZ fellas get on with it.
Thrill rides are ok but SpaceX certainly looks like much more. I had occasion to check SpaceX out a bit the other day and can offer these links:
SpaceX web site.
Elon Musk's Wikipedia page.
SpaceX Wikipedia page
An April 5, 2011 press conference video of Elon Musk talking about Falcon Heavy.
The SpaceX open positions career page. Wow!
All very exciting!
They may actually have an IPO in 2013--very cool but, IMO, warranting caution and plenty of investment homework.
BTW, their current customers and potential customers will surely be watching how they handle things. There's no way SpaceX can just push it off a cliff and hope for the best.
The most cost effective launch date determination methodology is to check, recheck, and then check again. and then take two weeks vacation and then check again. 4 projects ( well 5 with the vacation) , different project managers and all results should be the same otherwise: check again.
" ... $1 billion and officials boasted that it took a million signatures to certify a shuttle ready to fly."
Be a little patient ....
It will happen ....
You can bet that Space X wants to put on a good show ....
Anyone who works in a production/transportation company knows that engineering and production delays are inevitable. In fact whenever production workers hear a schedule date(s), they generally double it because thats how long it will actually take!! Get it right, pass your inspections, double check all work, and it'll be built when it's built! (in this case fly when it will fly) I must agree with expressed reservations about Elon's predictions/ statements though, he sounds like certain production managers I know assuring our Administration that everything will happen on schedule!!(Knowingly lying through their teeth!!!lol)--S--
After J.F.K.s speech we didnt launch for the moon .We took steps one at a time,& yes there were delays...many many delays.Remember Apollo one...DO IT RIGHT or dont do it at all.Mankind needs industry to move into space...the returns are uncalculatable in knowledge & money. GO SPASE X GO!!
Agreed! I hope that SpaceX can really get the ball rolling and we see a new techological renaissance in LEO operations and bring those launch costs WAAAAAAY down to start all sorts of other neat projects and programs.
What I'm especially hopeful for is that NASA gets to keep the billions that it used to spend on the Shuttle and can actually reapportion them to more important exploration projects! Sadly, as things usually go in government circles, coming in under-budget usually results in that money disappearing from the future budget.