E-mail updates
Follow on Twitter
Subscribe to RSS
SpaceX
Sparks and clouds of exhaust and vapor issue forth from SpaceX's Falcon 9 rocket during a static fire test at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station on Monday.
SpaceX has suggested May 19 as the new date for its potentially history-making Falcon 9 rocket launch to the International Space Station, with May 22 as a backup date.
The schedule shift provides more time for NASA to review changes in the California-based company's flight software, and also avoids a potential conflict with the planned May 14 launch of three new space station crew members from Russia's Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan.
If SpaceX's demonstration mission is completely successful, it would represent the first commercial flight to the space station. The flight plan calls for the company's robotically controlled Dragon cargo capsule to conduct a series of maneuvers near the station, starting two days after the Falcon 9 lifts off from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station's Launch Complex 40 in Florida. If all those maneuvers go as planned, astronauts on the orbiting outpost would latch onto the Dragon and pull it in for a berthing.
About a half-ton of supplies would be unloaded over the course of a couple of weeks, and then the Dragon would be detached and sent back down to a Pacific Ocean splashdown. That success scenario would open the way for SpaceX to start resupplying the space station in earnest, under the terms of a $1.6 billion contract with NASA.
If the Dragon couldn't hook up with the station this time around, another demonstration flight would be scheduled as a makeup test.
SpaceX has received hundreds of millions of dollars from NASA to develop the Falcon 9 and the Dragon as a partial replacement for the space shuttle fleet, which was retired last year. The Falcon 9 had a successful maiden orbital flight in June 2010, and the Dragon made a similarly successful debut in December 2010. The upcoming flight would provide the first opportunity for an actual rendezvous with the space station.
The launch has been repeatedly delayed, primarily due to flight software reviews. SpaceX conducted a successful launch-pad engine firing test on Monday in preparation for a planned May 7 liftoff, but the company and NASA decided to hold off in order to provide more time for the current review.
"SpaceX and NASA are nearing completion of the software assurance process," company spokeswoman Kirstin Brost Grantham said today in an email, "and SpaceX is submitting a request to the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station for a May 19 launch target with a backup on May 22. Thus far, no issues have been uncovered during this process, but with a mission of this complexity we want to be extremely diligent."
Bill Gerstenmaier, NASA's associate administrator for human exploration and operations, also indicated in a space agency statement that the May 19 date was doable.
"After additional reviews and discussions between the SpaceX and NASA teams, we are in a position to proceed toward this important launch," he said. "The teamwork provided by these teams is phenomenal. There are a few remaining open items, but we are ready to support SpaceX for its new launch date of May 19."
Because of the orbital mechanics involved with a space station rendezvous, the Falcon 9 must be launched at a precise time of day, with opportunities coming up only every three days.
The current plan would result in a launch at 4:55 a.m. ET May 19. That would provide an ample time interval after the Russians' launch of a Soyuz craft carrying a NASA astronaut and two Russian cosmonauts up to the station. That mission, which is due for liftoff on May 14 Eastern time and docking on May 17, will boost the station's crew to its full complement of six spacefliers.
More about SpaceX:
- SpaceX chief plans to become spaceflier
- Next steps in the new space race
- SpaceX has a lofty goal: Help save humanity
- CNBC: Elon Musk on why SpaceX has the Right Stuff
- Cosmic Log archive on the new space race
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 and adding the Cosmic Log page to your Google+ presence. You can also check out "The Case for Pluto," my book about the controversial dwarf planet and the search for new worlds.
Leave a Comment:
Alan's article title ....SpaceX's commercial liftoff to space station put on hold again
"Space X maybe moving along quicker than many think ...."
#5.7 - Thu May 3, 2012 2:58 AM EDT
That was my post from your May 2 article ....
I felt Space X wouldn't be playing around ....
This is going to be huge for them ....
Cool stuff Alan ....
Thanks ....
"If the Dragon couldn't hook up with the station this time around, another demonstration flight would be scheduled as a makeup test."
This is COTS 2 of 3. It was not originally to go to the ISS. COTS 1 went without a hitch and demonstrated the capabilities needed to *MOVE THE SCHEDULE UP*. Phrasing the next launch as a "makeup test" when it is already on the books regardless does SpaceX a disservice. If I was giving public relations advice, I would have played down reaching the ISS this launch.
For that matter hyping this launch as some kind of penultimate moment one way or another is a disservice. Holding the first commercial company flight to the ISS as some kind of proof for praise or damnation misses the point. America needs to get its head in the game of supporting it's can-do citizens and industry for the long haul. Because that is where the future is, regardless of what intrenched political interests might otherwise want us to believe.
Way to go Space X!
It's true that SpaceX has received money to develop their systems, but to put it in context, the amount of money they've received is less than the cost of one shuttle mission.
tom: Yes thats maybe thru but they have not made it yet to the iss
It hasn't, but it will... and Tom's point is well taken. If you want to talk just R&D, consider that the Shuttle cost taxpayers over $6 billion to develop before it ever launched (and that's in 1971 dollars, probably over 3 or 4 times that when you adjust for inflation).
Falcon/Dragon development costs are a small fraction of that by comparison, especially considering that it is privately funded to a large extent.
Lee Jun-fan,
in large part subsidized by the investment that NASA has made in previous rocket development.
"in large part subsidized by the investment that NASA has made in previous rocket development."
Which is NASA merely doing its job.
From the NASA Charter:
"(c) Commercial Use of Space.--Congress declares that the general welfare of the United States requires that the Administration seek and encourage, to the maximum extent possible, the fullest commercial use of space."
and...
"(2) The improvement of the usefulness, performance, speed, safety, and efficiency of aeronautical and space vehicles."
and...
"(9) The preservation of the United States preeminent position in aeronautics and space through research and technology development related to associated manufacturing processes."
And I thank the agency for the above (and commercial launch providers [not limited to SpaceX] likely thank them all the more), but it's one of the reasons NASA exists at all.
frank,
That NASA is doing their job is not the point. The point is that you can't compare NASA to a private venture when that private venture is leveraging at no cost to itself the work that NASA has conducted in the past. The reality is that without that high cost experimentation that NASA has done over the years, SpaceX would have been spending the same amount of money that NASA did and does.
Is that too difficult to understand?
Is a launch of the Falcon heavy-lift vehicle still scheduled for the end of this year? That'll be a major milestone too.
I don't believe it ever was scheduled for "this" year. From a recent SpaceX press release:
they will get their eventually all new inventions have bugs and flaws that need to be ironed out
Lee Jun-fan,
At the SpaceX web site, there's a video of an April 5, 2011 press conference about Falcon Heavy where Elon mentions that the launch will be at the "end of next rear." Just click "FALCON HEAVY" on the left menu. If there's been a change of plans, I haven't found it yet. Anyway, the video is quite interesting.
I'll hunt for the press release you quote.
naw, I wouldn't expect those changes in plans to happen until two weeks before launch. That is SpaceX's pattern so far.
Lee Jun-fan,
I found this in the April 5, 2011 press release:
In a July 13, 2011 press release, it says:
I scanned more recent press releases and didn't see anything else. If you know of a recent press release stating a change, I'd sure like to know its date.
I, for one, am glad the SpaceX folk are taking the time to iron out the bugs.... We just have to be patient!! (darn hard to be though!! :))--S--
They should be doing that BEFORE they set up the rocket on the launch pad, not after.
I agree Jonathan, but is there not a certain amount of fine tuning that must be done on the launch pad for a first time trip such as this one? I mean, we've had this conversation already, but one should expect some fine tuning on the launch pad, right? (now, I agree that ironing out the software shouldn't be happening at this stage. My point is just that there are some items that we can expect to happen on the pad)
mob,
The rocket has launched before. There is nothing more that needs to be accomplished on the pad for this flight.
As for any changes to the rocket that might require launch pad checkout, that shouldn't still be happening 2 weeks before flight.
It is all a matter of what process they are using, and the more I see the, they are basically taking a 'hacker' type mentality for something that is supposed to be used for mission critical operations. All fine and dandy when a failure just creates a nuisance, but in this case, it is loss of mission. Very sloppy.
I really haven't heard any reliable details about what is being worked on. I've heard in the comments on various articles that these delays are coming from both sides (SpaceX and NASA). But I can't recall any specifics about what is being worked on. There was mention of something to do with software but, again, nothing really specific.
It really feels, from my perspective as a space enthusiast/rocket fan, that there is something specifically NOT being mentioned in these press releases. It's my own speculation, but that's how it feels, to me.
Of the few posts that I am actually motivated to write in public fora, most of them contain the same message:
Relax.
Unless we're somehow involved in this endeavor, perhaps we should just watch and marvel...