SpaceX Falcon 9/Dragon COTS Demo (C2+) PRE LAUNCH UPDATES

[Ben the Space Brit]

Is this activity based on an assumption that the mission flies as scheduled, or has the decision already been made and NASA are simply waiting for the appropriate committees to rubber-stamp it?

[mr. mark]

Up until the press conference April 30th is still a NET time. I would suspect a basic go no go though at this time. Either way unless something is way wrong or Dragon simply needs more testing, I would think that the BASIC time frame will hold. There is no accounting for last minute delays. Although I'm not a L2 subscriber, I'm hearing rumors about stressing the NET portion. I hope to join up this next week just in time for pre launch activities. Tax issues for me have had to come first, unfortunately.

[Robotbeat]

Yeah, have to wait for the FRR to be sure, but even if April 30th stays, the launch window is instantaneous (and weather is not always cooperative, neither are sailors), so there's a pretty good chance of a scrub and launching in early May anyway.

[mr. mark]

This just in....

Elon Musk on NASA approval of Dragon -" it has to go through a very rigorous set of safety and reliability requirements and pass all those, WHICH WE JUST GOT OUR APPROVAL LAST WEEK. That was the toughest thing."

http://www.space.com/15267-elon-musk-private-space-challenges.html

[iamlucky13]

Is this activity based on an assumption that the mission flies as scheduled, or has the decision already been made and NASA are simply waiting for the appropriate committees to rubber-stamp it?

I would assume it moving the SSRMS into position, since it is something that needs to be done, was simply convenient to do now, and that they don't have any other high priority robotic ops planned that would require it to position elsewhere. There's little reason not get simple tasks like this out of the way early

The final launch decision is, as always, dependent on the reviews, both at NASA and less formally at SpaceX. It's not a rubber-stamping formality, but part of everyone involved making sure everything is really ready.

[Orbiter]

CBS Space News reporting that the COTS-2/3 launch is not at 12:22 pm, but at 4:22 pm.

Orbiter

[psloss]

CBS Space News reporting that the COTS-2/3 launch is not at 12:22 pm, but at 4:22 pm.

Yes, 16:22 GMT, which would be 12:22 local.

[Moe Grills]

  Now I wonder if there is or will be a webcam of sorts installed inside
the Dragon?

 If there is/will be, then it would be neat if SpaceX were to allow John Q
Public access to the video images by internet during its orbital mission.

[manboy]

Not sure if this has been posted but its a presentation from February 23rd and it has a lot of info on the upcoming flight.

http://www.nasa.gov/pdf/627984main_4-Status%20of%20COTS_508.pdf

[happyflower]

Not sure if this has been posted but its a presentation from February 23rd and it has a lot of info on the upcoming flight.

http://www.nasa.gov/pdf/627984main_4-Status%20of%20COTS_508.pdf

Not real good with charts. Are the charts for SpaceX basically saying that there will only be this one test flight this year? And the first cargo flight will be in 2013?

Thanks

[woods170]

Not sure if this has been posted but its a presentation from February 23rd and it has a lot of info on the upcoming flight.

http://www.nasa.gov/pdf/627984main_4-Status%20of%20COTS_508.pdf

Not real good with charts. Are the charts for SpaceX basically saying that there will only be this one test flight this year? And the first cargo flight will be in 2013?

Thanks

No. First attempt for C2/C3 is planned for April (demo 2). Next flight (either a C2/C3 re-attempt, or CRS-1) is scheduled for late July, early August. And that's all tentatively.

[Chris Bergin]

FRR has begun. Expecting April 30, with the only wildcard via L2 being the Range (questions about F9, scrubs, then reconfig for Atlas V, then reconfig again for F9 being a pain). Not expected to be big issue in recent days.

[kevin-rf]

FRR has begun. Expecting April 30, with the only wildcard via L2 being the Range (questions about F9, scrubs, then reconfig for Atlas V, then reconfig again for F9 being a pain). Not expected to be big issue in recent days.

So what are the chances of acceptable weather on April 30

[Kabloona]

NASA Twitter feed now posting periodic live updates from FRR.

[corrodedNut]

NASA Twitter feed now posting periodic live updates from FRR.

http://twitter.com/#/NASA