NASA

Snapshots of what's to come... The Dragon C2+ vehicle will arrive and berth at the International Space Station for the first time at 8:20 AM, Pacific Daylight Time, tomorrow.


NASA

NASA / Rick Wetherington, Tim Powers and Tim Terry

Dragon C2+ Lifts Off...Finally! At 12:44 AM, Pacific Daylight Time today, a Falcon 9 rocket carrying the Dragon C2+ capsule successfully lifted off from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station (CCAFS) in Florida. After months of launch delays, Dragon C2+ is finally headed to the International Space Station (ISS)...where Dragon will arrive this Friday, May 25th. This morning's historic moment for human spaceflight was definitely (and obviously) heralded at the SpaceX headquarters based in Hawthorne, California—with more than a thousand SpaceX employees (who stood inside a viewing area right behind the Mission Control Center) cheering and clapping enthusiastically as a projection screen showed Falcon 9 slowly but steadily rising from its pad at CCAFS' Space Launch Complex-40. The applause was even stronger once footage was shown of Dragon C2+'s twin solar arrays flawlessly deploying after the spacecraft separated from its second stage motor in Earth orbit. More applause is expected this Friday, when Dragon will be berthed to the ISS via robotic arm.


SpaceX

Should Dragon successfully berth with the ISS on May 25, it will stay at the outpost till May 31...before departing the space station and re-entering Earth's atmosphere that same day. Like the previous Dragon flight in December, 2010, this capsule will also land and be recovered in the Pacific Ocean—hundreds of miles off the coast of Southern California.


NASA / Alan Ault


SpaceX


NASA TV


SpaceX

NASA TV

Dragon C2+'s launch is scrubbed... The launch attempt for Dragon C2+ was aborted early this morning when slightly high combustion chamber pressure was detected in Engine 5 of the Falcon 9 rocket. SpaceX will try to launch Dragon C2+ this Tuesday...pending data results that engineers receive following an inspection of Engine 5 at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station (CCAFS) in Florida today. Liftoff for May 22 is scheduled for 12:44 AM, Pacific Daylight Time.

Posted with this entry are photos of Falcon 9's rollout to its Space Launch Complex-40 pad at CCAFS on May 17.


NASA / Jim Grossmann


NASA / Jim Grossmann


NASA / Jim Grossmann


NASA / Jim Grossmann


NASA / Ken Thornsley

NASA / Ben Smegelsky

Atlantis: Retirement Update... While her decommissioning process continues at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida, the orbiter Atlantis is also taking part in an effort to speed up the development of NASA's Space Launch System (SLS) by having Main Propulsion System (MPS) components be removed from the shuttle. The MPS components will be placed in temporary storage for future use on the SLS...with items like the liquid hydrogen fuel lines being taken out of Atlantis' engine compartment (as shown in the pics posted with this entry). Atlantis' sister ship Endeavour is also being 'scavenged' for engine parts to be used on the SLS—though Endeavour will soon complete transition and retirement operations and will be just months away from being flown to Los Angeles and becoming a space artifact at the California Science Center.

Atlantis is scheduled to be towed down the road to her final home at the Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex between this November and February 2013.


NASA / Ben Smegelsky


NASA / Ben Smegelsky


NASA / Ben Smegelsky

NASA / Bill Ingalls

Another Successful Soyuz Launch... Yesterday evening, a Soyuz TMA-04M rocket carrying three new International Space Station (ISS) residents was launched from Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. Soyuz Commander Gennady Padalka, NASA Flight Engineer Joseph Acaba and Flight Engineer Sergei Revin will arrive at the ISS late tomorrow.


NASA / Bill Ingalls

On a related note, the Soyuz recently made its way in American pop culture when the Russian vehicle was featured on last Thursday's season finale of the hit CBS TV show, The Big Bang Theory. For those of you who watch this (hilarious) sitcom, aerospace engineer Howard Wolowitz (played by Simon Helberg) was chosen by NASA to fly to the ISS after an experiment he designed was selected as a payload that would be sent to the orbital outpost. Real-life astronaut Mike Massimino, who took part in two Hubble Space Telescope servicing missions (STS-109 and STS-125, respectively), had a prominent role in this episode.


Mike Massimino

If you're a regular viewer of The Big Bang Theory, you'd appreciate how the show constantly makes references to space exploration and even features cameos of, along with actual astronauts, world-renowned figures such as Stephen Hawking in its episodes. Nice to see spaceflight and science be taken seriously in Hollywood!


Mike Massimino

Endeavour Deactivated... NASA's youngest orbiter became the last of the three retired space shuttles to be permanently silenced. The final power-down of all of Endeavour's systems took place at 6:58 AM, Pacific Daylight Time, last Friday. This milestone comes 20 years after the orbiter flew on her inaugural mission, STS-49, and almost 1 year after Endeavour launched on her final flight, STS-134.

Endeavour remains on schedule to be delivered to the California Science Center, Endeavour's final home, in Los Angeles this September.


NASA

Bigelow Aerospace

Commercial Spaceflight Update... Yesterday, SpaceX announced a partnership with Bigelow Aerospace that would involve SpaceX launching paying passengers aboard its Falcon 9/Dragon vehicles to private space stations sent into Earth orbit by Bigelow. The orbital habitats, known as BA-330, would be based on the designs of the Genesis 1 and 2 space stations...which Bigelow successfully flew into orbit in 2006 and 2007, respectively. With SpaceX providing an extra means of transportation, Bigelow now has two ways of getting tourists up to its floating outposts; the company also has an agreement with Boeing that involves its Crew Space Transportation (CST)-100 vehicle sending astronauts to BA-330 as well.


NASA / Jim Grossmann

Of course, the Dragon capsule still has more than a week to go (tentatively) to prove that it can successfully dock with a space station (the International Space Station, that is). And it will still be 2 to 3 more years before the CST-100 even launches on its first test flight. The first segment of the BA-330 habitat isn't scheduled to launch till that same time frame as well. Ordinary folks with lots of money who want to be the first ones to visit a 'space hotel' will have to remain patient.


Boeing

ATK

Images of the Day... Alliant Techsystems, or ATK, announced today that they are planning to develop a manned spacecraft that will soar into Earth orbit aboard ATK's Liberty Launch System, which was unveiled to the public late last year. ATK, which built the Solid Rocket Boosters (SRBs) for the now-defunct space shuttle program and will provide the SRBs for NASA's Space Launch System (at least for the SLS' first couple of flights; NASA is planning to eventually replace the SRBs with more advanced solid or liquid-fueled motors for the rocket's side-mounted boosters), is aiming for 2014 to conduct the inaugural test flight of Liberty from Kennedy Space Center in Florida. ATK is targeting 2015 to conduct the first crewed flight of Liberty—while 2016 is a tentative date in which the vehicle could support manned missions for NASA and other prospective customers.


ATK


ATK

Boeing

Photos of the Day... Less than a month after a previous test was successfully conducted in Nevada, Boeing flawlessly executed another test of the Crew Space Transportation (CST)-100's parachute system above Nevada's Delmar Dry Lake Bed. The test took place on May 2.


Boeing


Boeing

Dragon C2+'s Flight is Delayed... SpaceX and NASA are now aiming for May 19 to launch the long-awaited mission to the International Space Station (ISS). The liftoff time for that day would be at 1:55 AM, Pacific Daylight Time. If Dragon C2+ doesn't get off the ground on the 19th, then SpaceX would try again on May 22.

The delay is due to SpaceX and NASA continuing to review the software that Dragon will use on its upcoming mission, as well as the fact NASA does not want the arrival of Dragon to conflict with the docking of the next Soyuz spacecraft (which is carrying three new station crew members: Russian cosmonauts Gennady Padalka and Sergey Revin, and NASA astronaut Joe Acaba) to the ISS on May 17.


SpaceX