SpaceX Falcon 9/Dragon COTS Demo (C2+) GENERAL DISCUSSION

[Lars_J]

I'm glad the solar array covers/pontoons worked. I seem to recall concern about a Skylab-like incident, where the pontoons could be ripped off during the ascent. But they certainly appear to have done the proper aerodynamic modeling on the pontoons.

I'm most looking forward to getting some great shots of the spacecraft from ISS - When should it be close enough for them to photograph?

[Norm38]

When Dragon is in free drift, how well does the craft remain fixed relative to the sun?  Do the arrays just track the best they can, and are there limits on free drift, related to keeping the solar arrays lit?

[clarkeo]

Did spacex relight the second stage again on this flight? Because if you look at N2YO.com they are tracking the Falcon 9 Rocket Body as being in a substantially different orbit. Or is this just because of the phasing burns of the Dragon capsule which obviously the Falcon second stage didn't do?

[clarkeo]

wow looking further into it ... not just the ground track! LOL it looks like the second stage has been boosted into a highly elliptical orbit with an Apogee of 10,897km and a perigee 283km. Is this an orbit that will decay quickly? Surely they are meant to destroy the second stage?

[QuantumG]

wow looking further into it ... not just the ground track! LOL it looks like the second stage has been boosted into a highly elliptical orbit with an Apogee of 10,897km and a perigee 283km. Is this an orbit that will decay quickly? Surely they are meant to destroy the second stage?

I imagine they want to know if their GTO flight plan is feasible first.

[Jorge]

Did spacex relight the second stage again on this flight? Because if you look at N2YO.com they are tracking the Falcon 9 Rocket Body as being in a substantially different orbit. Or is this just because of the phasing burns of the Dragon capsule which obviously the Falcon second stage didn't do?

The only Falcon 9 R/B I see tracked on that site is the one from the previous flight (37253, check the launch date, it's December 8, 2010).

[cordor]

wow looking further into it ... not just the ground track! LOL it looks like the second stage has been boosted into a highly elliptical orbit with an Apogee of 10,897km and a perigee 283km. Is this an orbit that will decay quickly? Surely they are meant to destroy the second stage?

To maintain circular orbit, they need to fire up rocket at apogee,  i don't think they still have control nor fuel, nor they care stage 2's orbit anymore.

[Lars_J]

Given the lack of margins in this mission, I doubt the 2nd stage had much propellant left for any significant maneuver after SECO/Dragon separation. It might still be in its insertion orbit, although it would be nice to know for sure.

[manboy]

Does anyone have the pre-launch interviews recorded?

[ugordan]

Does anyone have the pre-launch interviews recorded?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hHgIQfx2hY8
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8D2fgW_5_Tc

[mikes]

Bolden's speech is here:  http://www.youtube.com/user/SpaceRefOnOrbit

Anyone know where there's a transcript of Bolden's remarks?

Transcript of Charles Bolden comments after SpaceX Dragon C2+ launch, 2012-05-22 0503EDT

Thanks very much to all of you for coming out. Hopefully you enjoyed the spectacular launch this morning. I've just got a very quick statement that I'd like to make and then I think they're going to let me try to answer two questions and then we'll be out of here because I know you all are whipped.

I really want to take this opportunity to congratulate SpaceX for their successful launch this morning and actually salute the NASA team that worked alongside them to make it happen. Today marks the beginning of a new era in exploration - a future in space that will create good-paying jobs here on the Florida coast as well as throughout the United States of America. The significance of this day cannot be overstated - a private company has launched a spacecraft to the International Space Station that will attempt to dock there for the first time. And while there is a lot of work ahead to successfully complete this mission, we're certainly off to good start and I hope you would all agree on that. Under President Obama's leadership, the nation is embarking upon an ambitious exploration program that will take us farther into space than we've ever been before. 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. We're committed to ending the outsourcing of work on America's space program and bringing these jobs back home to America. And we're working to promote competition and have multiple private sector partners so we don't find ourselves in the situation we're in today, having only one way to get our astronauts to the space station. The decision to end the shuttle program back in 2004 was actually a difficult one. But with the kind of hard work, determination and ingenuity for which NASA and this nation are known, we're now back on the brink of a new future. A future that stands on the shoulders of Mercury and Gemini, Apollo and Shuttle. A future that embraces the innovation the private sector brings to the table, and a future that opens up the skies to endless possibilities. Again, congratulations to the SpaceX and NASA teams, and Godspeed Dragon.

With that, I'll take a couple of questions if you have 'em, and you don't have to feel compelled to ask.

(inaudible from behind camera)

The question for those of you who may not have heard is: how much does today's flight validate the approach that NASA's taking to commercial spaceflight and what does it say to the naysayers?

What it does today is it demonstrates what we said was the future of American space exploration and it's actually using private industry to provide for access to low earth orbit while NASA goes off and does what, as I said, what NASA does best and that's exploring, doing things that private industry cannot do or should not do, taking the risks in things like sending humans to an asteroid, to Mars, to other places in our solar system. So, it's a great day for America. It's actually a great day for the world – there are people who thought that we had gone away, and today says no, we're not going away at all, we've got the Dragon, the SpaceX/NASA team that came through this morning with flying colours and I hope everybody celebrates that for what it is.

(inaudible from behind camera)

The question was: today was a launch that was very successful. This, for SpaceX, will end their participation in the COTS program and then they move (you didn't say all this, but I'm amplifying)  and then they move into CRS which is Cargo Resupply Services, and how difficult is it from here on out?

As I briefed the folk who were our guests over in OSB2, today was the first of a number of milestones in this mission. What a spectacular start, I mean it was just a picture perfect launch, everything on the vehicle's working well. The next big milestone for us about an hour from now when the GNC door on the Dragon module opens, that exposes the star trackers and the navigation instruments on board Dragon to deep space. More importantly, though, when that door opens, it has the grapple fixture on the inside of the door. We have to have the door locked in place in order for Dragon to be berthed to the International Space Station, so that's the next big hurdle. After that we've got a few days for Dragon to get itself kinda, if you think about it as a human, to get its space legs on and get accustomed to being there, and then tomorrow and the day after they actually effect the rendezvous with the International Space Station where Dragon finds it, which is not a small task. After that happens, Dragon will fly around the International Space Station, do some manoeuvres to demonstrate its ability to be controlled from the ground and its ability to do autonomous control on board the Dragon itself. Then it will back off, we'll take a few hours or a day or so because that will complete flight number two of the demonstration flights, and then once the Dragon team, the SpaceX team, and the NASA teams get together (with our international partners, by the way) and say okay, we think everything is met, all the criteria met for close approach to the International Space Station, then Dragon will close to within metres of the International Space Station. The on-board crew will take over from there on, will reach out with the space station arm, get hold of the grapple fixture, pull it up snugly to the International Space Station, it'll have some bolts that'll be screwed in place and make it one with the International Space Station. When all the pressures are checked on both sides of the hatch, the crew will physically open the hatch and that will expose Dragon's interior to the crew inside the International Space Station, and for the next few days they'll be one vehicle.

(inaudible from behind camera)

Not an easy pass. This is good stuff! I tell people all the time, I am really excited about what's going on. This is what makes people in the space business get up in the morning and come to work, and hopefully since most of you are space reporters, you wouldn't be out here if you weren't excited about this, so hopefully the stories you tell today and tomorrow and the weeks ahead will be stories about victory and triumph, because the future will have some difficult times, but today it's a time for the United States, for SpaceX and the NASA team to celebrate.

That's all I'm going to have time for, I really apologise, but I'm trying to get back to Washington for some meetings. Thanks very much.

[edkyle99]

The SpaceX launch feed briefly, very briefly, showed a view looking forward toward the back end of Dragon as it separated from the second stage.  I'm wondering if I'm interpreting what I'm seeing correctly.  I see gold foil insulation, which I'm thinking might be at the "top" end of the trunk, just behind the Dragon capsule heat shield.  The viewpoint is on the second stage, looking up into the trunk, I think.

It's a shame this particular feed dropped out, as it would have provided a view of Dragon flying away and possibly deploying its arrays.

 - Ed Kyle

[dcporter]

Gotta be, right?

[Lars_J]

Yep, that definitely seemed to be an internal shot looking up at the trunk from the 2nd stage.

[corrodedNut]

Yep, that definitely seemed to be an internal shot looking up at the trunk from the 2nd stage.

Im not so sure about that. We'll find out one way or another when the arm does its inspection of the trunk after berthing.

[LegendCJS]

Yep, that definitely seemed to be an internal shot looking up at the trunk from the 2nd stage.

Why would you think that?  At the instant of separation all wired data links between cameras in the second stage and the video transmitters that would presumably be located on the Dragon would have been severed.  I thinks it is a trunk mounted camera looking back at the second stage.  Otherwise there would be unnecessary duplication of video transmitter equipment.

Edit: I take it back, there must be full video transmission equipment on the second stage or the videos from F9 flight 1 wouldn't have been possible.

[Ronsmytheiii]

Yep, that definitely seemed to be an internal shot looking up at the trunk from the 2nd stage.

Why would you think that?  At the instant of separation all wired data links between cameras in the second stage and the video transmitters that would presumably be located on the Dragon would have been severed.  I thinks it is a trunk mounted camera looking back at the second stage.  Otherwise there would be unnecessary duplication of video transmitter equipment.

Why put Mylar on the front of the upperstage?

[corrodedNut]

Maybe this will help.

[Lars_J]

Yep, that definitely seemed to be an internal shot looking up at the trunk from the 2nd stage.

Why would you think that?  At the instant of separation all wired data links between cameras in the second stage and the video transmitters that would presumably be located on the Dragon would have been severed.  I thinks it is a trunk mounted camera looking back at the second stage.  Otherwise there would be unnecessary duplication of video transmitter equipment.

The 2nd stage has its own transmitter used for telemetry and video. You may recall the shot from the POV of the 2nd stage during the last flight, where we could see the heat shield of the Dragon float away. This looks to be the the same or a similar POV.

EDIT: corrodedNut image suggests the POV is from the Dragon looking down. We'll know for sure soon.

[Nomadd]

Yep, that definitely seemed to be an internal shot looking up at the trunk from the 2nd stage.

Why would you think that?  At the instant of separation all wired data links between cameras in the second stage and the video transmitters that would presumably be located on the Dragon would have been severed.  I thinks it is a trunk mounted camera looking back at the second stage.  Otherwise there would be unnecessary duplication of video transmitter equipment.

2nd stage cameras would only have to link to the transmitters on the trunk. Some pretty small wireless cameras would reach a couple hundred feet.