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Subscribe to RSSFor the first time in history, a commercial spaceship has journeyed to the International Space Station, carrying vital supplies to the astronauts. NBC's Tom Costello reports.
The International Space Station's crew reached out today with a robotic arm to grab SpaceX's Dragon cargo capsule and brought it in for the orbital outpost's first-ever hookup with a commercial spaceship.
It marks the station's first linkup with a U.S.-made spacecraft since last year's retirement of NASA's space shuttle fleet, and potentially opens the way for dozens of commercial cargo shipments. If the long-range plan unfolds as NASA hopes, U.S. astronauts could be shuttled back and forth on the Dragon or similar spacecraft within just a few years.
"Today, this really is the beginning of a new era in commercial spaceflight," said Alan Lindenmoyer, manager of NASA's commercial crew and cargo program.
The hookup comes after Tuesday's successful launch of the Dragon atop a Falcon 9 rocket, and represents the culmination of years of planning and hundreds of millions of dollars of spending by NASA and California-based SpaceX, known more formally as Space Exploration Technologies Corp. The company was founded a decade ago by dot-com billionaire Elon Musk, with aspirations of eventually sending humans to settle on Mars.
Musk said the technologies that were tested today will blaze a trail for those more ambitious trips to come. "This is a crucial step, and having achieved this step, it makes the things in the future and the ultimate path toward humanity becoming a multiplanet species much, much more likely," he told reporters after the hookup. "The chances of that happening just went up dramatically, so people should be really excited about that."
But first things first: Today's operation marked the first full in-space test of the robotic Dragon spacecraft's procedure for approaching the station, and for that reason, every step along the way was carefully planned out and checked over the course of several hours. The first steps in the procedure were tested on Thursday, during a series of maneuvers that successfully brought the 14-foot-long, 12-foot-wide, gumdrop-shaped capsule within 2.5 kilometers (1.5 miles) of the $100 billion space station.
Today, a far more ambitious set of maneuvers brought the Dragon all the way to the station — but the trip wasn't always easy.
Fixing the glitches
The craft started out by taking up a position 250 meters (820 feet) below the station. From that vantage point, the Dragon was put through a series of maneuvers to test the station-to-spacecraft communication system. The space station's astronauts had the Dragon approach, then retreat, then approach, then hold its position.
After assessing the data, NASA said it wanted to do a double-check on the Dragon's thermal imagers, which are part of the rendezvous sensor system. The spacecraft was commanded to approach to a distance of 200 meters (656 feet), then stop while NASA took stock again. Space agency spokesman Josh Byerly said SpaceX's team made "minor modifications" to the thermal imaging system, just to make sure that it was providing tracking data in line with what other instruments were showing.
The Dragon was on its way to a 30-meter (98-foot) checkpoint when the team at SpaceX's Mission Control in Hawthorne, Calif., ordered the spacecraft to retreat to a distance of 70 meters (230 feet). NASA's Mission Control said the SpaceX team wanted to correct bad laser sensor readings that the Dragon was getting from a stray reflector on the station's Japanese-built Kibo laboratory. To work around the problem, SpaceX narrowed the field of view for the laser sensor so that it wouldn't pick up light from the offending reflector.
"One of the lasers wasn't working well, so we had to recalibrate the laser and tighten the beam, and then it did work," Musk explained afterward.
Catching a Dragon by the tail
Once the fix was made, Dragon returned to the 30-meter checkpoint and moved in for the final approach. When the craft reached a distance of 10 meters (33 feet), NASA astronaut Don Pettit used the station's 17-meter-long (60-foot-long) robotic arm to grab hold of the Dragon's grapple attachment at 9:56 a.m. ET.
"It looks like we've got us a Dragon by the tail," Pettit told NASA's Mission Control.
"Congratulations on a wonderful capture," Mission Control's Megan Behnken replied. "You've made a lot of folks happy down here, over in Hawthorne and right here in Houston."
Pettit joked that the operation went so smoothly it felt like a computer simulation. "This sim went really well," he said. "We're ready to turn it around and do it for real."
It took another couple of hours to pull in the Dragon and get it fully hooked up to the station's Harmony module. NASA and SpaceX refer to this operation as a "berthing" rather than a "docking," because the Dragon is being passively pulled in rather than powering itself into the docking port.
The completion of berthing at 12:02 p.m. ET put SpaceX in the company of four governmental space ventures — NASA, the Russian Federal Space Agency, the European Space Agency and the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency — that have built vehicles capable of hooking up with the space station.
Musk said that he'd probably have to relax SpaceX's rule against drinking alcohol at its Hawthorne headquarters to accommodate a champagne celebration, but it was clear that the hundreds of employees who gathered to watch the berthing were already on a natural high. They cheered for Musk as he spoke to reporters over a video link — and when he told them, "I love you guys, too," they broke into a chant of "E-lon, E-lon, E-lon!"
Unloading the cargo
Dragon's hatch is scheduled to be opened early Saturday morning. The station's six astronauts will unload about 1,000 pounds (460 kilograms) of cargo, including food, clothes, batteries and a laptop, plus 15 student-designed experiments. Then about 1,455 pounds (660 kilograms) of Earth-bound cargo — including personal items from the crew as well as completed experiments and old equipment — will be loaded up on the Dragon. These payloads don't come anywhere close to the Dragon's capacity (6 tons going up, 3 tons coming down), but they were made part of the mission as non-essential ride-alongs.
On May 31, the capsule will be detached from the station and sent back down toward a Pacific Ocean splashdown and recovery off the coast of Southern California. That part of the operation went off successfully during Dragon's first orbital test mission in December 2010, but this would mark the first-ever return of a commercial spacecraft from the space station. Russia's Soyuz capsule is the only other existing space vehicle capable of returning space station payloads.
A fully successful mission would open the way for commercial space station resupply missions to begin in earnest. SpaceX already has a $1.6 billion contract with NASA for 12 Dragon shipments through 2016. If all goes well, the first flight covered by that contract could lift off in September, said Mike Suffredini, NASA's space station program manager. Another company, Virginia-based Orbital Sciences Corp., is developing a cargo spacecraft known as Cygnus to take on space station shipments as well, under the terms of a $1.9 billion contract. The Cygnus has yet to be flight-tested, however.
In addition to the cargo contract, SpaceX is one of four companies that is receiving millions of dollars from NASA to produce spaceships capable of carrying astronauts. In SpaceX's case, the Dragon would be modified with a launch escape system, while the other companies — Blue Origin, the Boeing Co. and Sierra Nevada Corp. — are working on other spaceship concepts, ranging from capsules to Sierra Nevada's mini-space plane. The first astronaut flights could take place as early as 2017.
Until that time, NASA will have to depend on the Russians to transport U.S. astronauts on Soyuz spacecraft, at a cost of more than $60 million a seat. SpaceX and other players in the commercial space race say they can meet or beat that price.
The transition to commercial operations for orbital transport is a key part of the Obama administration's plan for future space exploration.
"We’re handing off to the private sector our transportation to the International Space Station so that NASA can focus on what we do best — exploring even deeper into our solar system, with missions to an asteroid and Mars on the horizon," NASA Administrator Charles Bolden said after the Dragon's launch. "We’re committed to ending the outsourcing of work on America’s space program and bringing these jobs back to the United States."
More about the mission:
- 'Star Trek' Scotty's remains go into space
- Video: Scenes from the SpaceX hookup
- Next steps in a new space race
- Cosmic Log archive on SpaceX
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.
Leave a Comment:
SPACE THE FINAL FRONTIER - Kirk now has reduced his crew down to six and is traveling without deflectors or shields or phasers or photon torpedos.
I sincerly hope the 6 ton capacity does not end up carrying weapons of destruction which may be used by terrorist agaisnt the persons [US] fliping the bill.
I sincerely hope the ISS crew doesn't encounter Klingons. As you pointed out, they are SERIOUSLY under-armed up there.
Big proof we don't need the government to do everything for us!
Ignorance is bliss, isn't it?
Correct me if I'm wrong but if NASA has awarded SpaceX 1.6 billion dollars for 12 flights wouldn't that equal 133 million per flight? I don't remember the last time NASA sent up a rocket for under 1 billion dollars per flight. This sounds like a sweet deal.
Good ole American know-how!
Congrats to the Space-X Team!
Fantastic, absolutely fantastic! While I used to work for a major aerospace company before being laid off due to the ending of the Space Shuttle program, I am just a little confused why my old company and others didn't do this years ago. Thank you Elon Musk for showing big business how to do it. If I was CEO of my old company I'd feel mortified about going to work tomorrow.
It was tried. NASA tried several programs over the years to make state of the art innovative spacecraft that would have replaced the shuttle at not only a fraction of the cost of the shuttle,but a fraction of the cost of Space-Xs dragon capsule. Your own companies lobbiests killed them. Why? Becuase the space shuttle was a cash cow. They made a fortune off that program and every time they tried to come up with something newer and better,like a fully reusable single stage to orbit space plane that could run on a maintinance schedule similar to a jetliner,they made sure to kill it.
The X33 was right on track. They had tested the engine and it worked perfectly. They were having some problems with the composite fuel tanks. That was something the engineers felt they could make work,and the plan was to use aluminum tanks until the composit ones were ready,reducing payload but keeping the rest of the program on track. That was the excuse used to kill it. It made no sense to do it though and in fact,after the program was canceled,engineers were able to make composite liquid oxygen tanks from graphite composite. It worked! They WERE over budget. Lobbyists for the big aerospace companies that made the shuttle used the tanks and being overbudget as an excuse to talk congress into killing it. Think about it for a second. The program was over budget,ok. The composite tanks were behind shedule,but the engineers assured us that it was going to work out,and in fact it DID.
What were the numbers? Lockheed was supposed to put in around 286 million and the US government about 0.9 billion dollars. The construction of this launch vehicle,would then be left to private industry,and the operation of it to private industry as well,rather than to NASA,although NASA might buy a few for their own uses. The spaceplane would have been able to land at any comerical airport in an emergency,and would fly on a schedule similar to a commercial airliner. Unlike the space shuttle,it would be completely reusable and not have to be completely refurbished after each flight. It would have reduce the cost to orbit from 10,000 dollars a pound to around 1000 dollars a pound. Due to delays and cost overruns,the governments share increased to around 1.2 billion. This isnt suprising,as the X33 program was working on significant advances in rocket engine ,thermal protection and fuel tank technologies. If you knew exactly how you would do such things,you would not NEED research,you would just go ahead nad BUILD it. As such,those cost estimates have to be taken as exactly that,ESTIMATES. Apollo had MANY MANY budget overruns,and delays. Remember the Apollo launch pad fire? Today that would have killed the program. Rathe than focus on the technology,and remember that the heros that died were volunteers that knew and accepted the risks,we would be crying for years how someone died,and then use it as an excuse to destroy the dream they died for and make their deaths meaningless.
The thing is,people think R&D is like in the movies. You know how in the movies,someone is working on some project,often a bad guy,so the hero sabatoges is and becuase the rocket blew up on the launchpad or the airplane crashes its declared a "failure" and the program is canceled. We have been taught that,one single high profile problem and we think an entire R&D project is a 'failure' and a waste of money.
How did the money REALLY get wasted. It was wasted when the program was canceled. They cancled it and decided to "develop something else". Think about it for a second. The X33 prototype was 85% complete. They had already fabricated 96 percent of the parts for it. The launch facility was already 100% complete. In other words,most of the money had ALREADY BEEN SPENT. So,with all the money spent,they canceled the program and threw a billion dollars away. The "something else" they tried to develop ended up being Orion and the CEV,which cost more than the X33,and was more expensive to operate. Of course,any sane person knows that the billion already spent was a sunk cost. The rational and responsible thing to do was to ask the question,how much more do we need to put in,and how much will it cost to "build something elese". Clearly,it would have cost a rather small amount to simply finish the project,but more clearly,there is no conceivable way that ANYONE could possibly conclude that you could start over and come up with another design for anything close to to what it would cost to finish the X33 project.
What happened then? The companies that supplied the parts and contracters to maintain and operate the space shuttle made BILLIONS off it. They hired armies of lobbiests. Additionally,the companies that didnt get the X33 contract,hired their own legions of lobbyists. The companies inolved in the space shuttle wanted the X33 killed becuase even if they got involved in the X33 supply chain,it would have been a market of millions instead of billions. They would have lost vast sums of money. The companies that didnt get the X33 contracts wanted it canceled,becuase then,they would get another bite at the apple when the new program that replaced it was bid. Both of those groups lobbied congress,held press confrences and sent out press releases to journalists declaring the X33 program a failure. They repeated the lie enough that it was beleived and congress followed suit,led along by the nose to waste a billion dollars of our money.
Thats what happens when you make a R&D program your not willing to fully fund and follow through on. You waste a ton of money. THere is of course a difference between Orion and the X33. The X33 was fundable. There was money in the budget for it,and it was enough to complete the project. The problem was all the senators and congressmen wanted that money for their own pet projects and the lobbyists gave them cover to make it happen by convincing everyone it was a "failure". It was canceled and we lost all of our investment in it. Orion on the other hand was never funded. They never had the money to do it and at the rate they were going it was obvious they would never be able to complete the spacecraft and launch vehicle. Bush gave them a goal and they tried their best,but he never properly funded it and they just were not going to be able to do it. Obamas action was the correct one. He changed the goal and scalled it back. The hardware they build was able to be repurposed into something that COULD be finished,with the funding that was available. They ware still working on it,and it still is going forward. It will be a spacecraft that will be able to reach the space station. It will ALSO be able to go to the moon and mars,but those components are being delayed. In other words,if we are doing the parts of the project we need to get into earth orbit now,and when we go to the moon,we can build those parts when we need them. We dont have the money for that right now. (people say that Obama "killed it" but really he saved it. No one in congress,especially not the republicans that criticize him would have voted to fund a moon mission. If Obama had supported one,Gingrich would not have proposed one,he would have been against it)
Too many here perceive NASA as nothing more than an overly bloated costly entity of our government. Please let me remind you of what NASA has wrought:
If you own a computer (obviously)...thank NASA.
If you have an iphone, smart phone, ipad or iphone....thank NASA.
If you have a microwave, pans coated with teflon or used velcro....thank NASA.
For those of you that remember shopping in grocery stores and having EVERY item purchased keyed in by hand but then came SCANNERS...yep, thank NASA for that, too.
MOST IMPORTANTLY: If you or a family member life that was saved by an MRI, CATSCAN or a defibrillator....
Well, I think you know who to thank by now.
Yep, unintended consequences, they hit both ways and in NASA's case, we truly benefit.
Nuclear Power got its start from the government. Space exploration was a goal of the nation, not a commercial goal. Now we need to find the economic insentive to go out there.
"E-lon, E-lon, E-lon!" - the money guy always gets the credit for what the engineers do! Congrats to the SpaceEx TEAM.
Well done. This is not an easy thing to do. Notice it has a pressurized section. In principle,you could put a man in it right now with an oxygen tank and CO2 scrubber and send him to the space station. Of course,it would be crazy dangerous at this point,but they have the tech now. Its just a matter of working any small bugs out that impact reliability and getting it human rated.
Even with all our technology...as other countries develop vehicles for space I wonder, is there a period of time or a date that somebody is going to say "enough" on satillites above our planet seems like we have so many...just missing each other.
We seem to do pretty well with many thousands of aircraft in flight at any given moment, in a much smaller volume, don't we...?
Now to be fair, aircraft can't leave 'aerial debris,' stuff does fall to Earth. Nor is there an aerial equivalent of unmanned satellites (increasing drone/RPV technology may approach that, though) We do need better international regulations on orbital debris control.
Everything else need be no more involved than air traffic control...
at some point all those comm sats will be on commercial platforms serviced by personnell, I am against the power beamers etc but that is yet another factor bringing platforms into service. Commercial space will be a boon. Spacex has a taxi service in operation. Others will follow. Still, we are a pace or two behind projections. Political crud is too blame. Nasa will have a place always. They should have their own real space ship, but a taxi service will have to do. At least we now have two methods to reach the ISS.