After making repairs, SpaceX launched a Falcon 9 rocket with a Dragon cargo capsule, and set the wheels in motion to try landing the uncrewed rocket's first stage at sea.
The primary goal of Saturday's launch is to send more than 5,000 pounds (2,300 kilograms) of supplies, equipment and experiments to the International Space Station aboard the Dragon. But after the Dragon and the Falcon's second stage separate and go on their way, the 14-story-tall first stage is programmed to fly itself back to an "autonomous spaceport drone ship" sitting about 200 miles (320 kilometers) off Florida's Atlantic coast.
Such a maneuver has never been tried before — and if it works, it could mark a giant leap toward rocket reusability and low-cost spaceflight. SpaceX's billionaire founder, Elon Musk, has said making rockets fully reusable could reduce the cost of getting to orbit to 1 percent of what it is today. That would hasten Musk's dream of creating colonies on Mars and making humanity a "multiplanet species."
The Falcon 9 rose into a dark sky at 4:47 a.m. ET from Cape Canaveral Air Force Base in Florida. It almost blasted off on Tuesday — but a problem with an engine-steering actuator on the rocket's second stage forced a last-minute scrub. SpaceX replaced the balky part, and Saturday's countdown went smoothly.
Autonomous landing planned
The landing attempt is due to come about 10 minutes after liftoff. After stage separation, at an altitude of well more than 60 miles (100 kilometers), the first stage would relight its rocket engines for three maneuvering burns, aimed at slowing down the supersonic descent and steering the rocket to a vertical landing on the drone ship.
The first stage has been equipped with fold-out stabilizing fins and landing legs to facilitate the maneuver. Hans Koenigsmann, SpaceX's vice president of mission assurance, told reporters that the maneuver would take place automatically, with no intervention from controllers on the ground.
The robotic drone ship has a 300-foot-long, 170-foot-wide landing platform — and it's designed to stabilize itself, even in heavy seas, thanks to a set of underwater thrusters. Success is by no means assured, however.
"When you look at it on the ground, I think it's probably a very, very big platform, a big spaceport," Koenigsmann said. "But if you look at it from ... suborbit, then it looks like a very, very small place to land on."
An infographic by Jon Ross shows the key phases in the launch-and-landing plan for SpaceX's Falcon 9 rocket during Friday's space station resupply mission.
For a larger version of the graphic and a full explanation of the launch profile and its significance, check out 'The Future of Space Launch Is Near' by John Gardi and Jon Ross.
No one was aboard the drone ship during the landing maneuver, due to safety concerns. Koenigsmann said the launch team may not know immediately whether the landing was successful, or whether the first stage crashed or missed the mark.
If the landing is successful, the ship and the rocket stage would be brought back to port in Jacksonville, Florida, for inspection. SpaceX has tested elements of the maneuver during previous Falcon 9 launches by bringing the first stage down for a "soft splashdown," but this marks the first attempt to have the stage land intact. Eventually, SpaceX would have rocket stages fly themselves back for touchdown on a land-based pad.
"I'm going to be super-excited if this works," Koenigsmann said.
He emphasized, however, that the launch's success or failure would not be judged by whether or not the first stage is recovered. "The main mission is absolutely to get cargo to the station," Koenigsmann said.
What's going to the station?
This is SpaceX's fifth resupply mission under the terms of a $1.6 billion contract with NASA that covers 12 flights in all. The cargo run is particularly important in the wake of October's blow-up of Orbital Sciences Corp.'s Antares rocket, which was supposed to send a Cygnus cargo capsule to the space station. Some payloads have been shifted to SpaceX's Dragon to make up for that loss.
The Dragon shipment includes duplicates of 17 student experiments that were on the ill-fated Cygnus. The gumdrop-shaped capsule also carries experiments that will study the immune systems of fruit flies and the wound-healing capabilities of flatworms in the space environment.
One of the most important payloads is a laser remote-sensing experiment that will monitor the worldwide distribution of clouds and aerosols from orbit. The $15 million Cloud-Aerosol Transport System, or CATS, is due to be set up on the space station's exterior later this month.
The cargo also includes more mundane supplies, such as the food, water and clothing needed by the space station's six residents. The crew is scheduled to snare the Dragon and hook it up to the orbital outpost on Monday. Over the course of a month, the capsule will be unloaded, and then loaded up again with cargo destined for return to Earth.
First published January 10 2015, 12:46 AM
Source: Top Stories - Google News - http://ift.tt/1AFdGEO
0 comments:
Post a Comment