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

[JBF]

Heh I wear jeans and T-shirts to work most days. My current shirt says "Non-Flammable, Challenge accepted"

Seeing the SpaceX staff crowd cheering when the solar panels deployed was awesome! Politics aside, these young motivated people certainly deserve this mission to be successful.

THey were just happy they still have jobs!

Not all people hate their jobs like you. They were happy because they saw the product of their work, not because of their paycheck.

Huh?  How the heck did you get that I hate -my- job out of that joke??

[Jorge]

To be fair I've heard that too a lot (especially on twitter, mainly in a positive manner), but it's actually not SpaceX specific. I've seen many shots of the OPFs with young people in t-shirts working on the orbiters, or at least we did before the end. I have no doubt it's the same at other places like ULA.

MCC is probably more formal per what you see on TV, but one could say that's respected too, given MOD's history. I kinda want to remember Gene Kranz in a smart white waistcoat and not in a t-shirt However, we've got MOD training videos on L2 where they are all very much young and casual, ironically getting pep talks from Mr Kranz.

MCC has a dress code. Rest of JSC is mostly dockers-and-polos.

[sanman]

Regarding astronaut Andre Kuipers' little issue with WindowsXP bootup for the robot sim - I'm a little surprised to hear that Windows is used onboard NASA spacecraft. For mission-critical software, wouldn't it be better to use something more reliable like Linux?

What do SpaceX themselves use?

[Lars_J]

Most (if not all) laptops on the station appear to be running Windows.

But I don't think they run the systems directly - they seem to be used more as interfaces to the real hardware/software.

I could be wrong.

[dcporter]

Most (if not all) laptops on the station appear to be running Windows.

But I don't think they run the systems directly - they seem to be used more as interfaces to the real hardware/software.

I could be wrong.

That was my understanding as well.

[Chris-A]

This morning I took a few photos of the ISS pass in my area. I do not believe Dragon was visible to me in the 10 minute flyover after ISS. I did notice a few other objects moving across the sky, but they where not in the orbital plane. As this was before sunrise, they could have been aircraft.

I'll make another attempt in the morning.
(I can move this some place else if needed, thank you)

[Jorge]

Most (if not all) laptops on the station appear to be running Windows.

But I don't think they run the systems directly - they seem to be used more as interfaces to the real hardware/software.

I could be wrong.

There are two kinds of laptops used aboard ISS.

PCS - user interface to the actual ISS control computers (MDMs) via 1553 PC cards, run Linux (originally Solaris).

SSC - run user apps like short-term plan, procedures, and email, run Windows.

[Lars_J]

Thanks for clearing that up, Jorge!

[mmeijeri]

I wear jeans and athletic shoes every day (Hawaiian shirts on Friday) except when in the LCC for launch and formal meetings

Pictures or it didn't happen! 

[Hog]

This morning I took a few photos of the ISS pass in my area. I do not believe Dragon was visible to me in the 10 minute flyover after ISS. I did notice a few other objects moving across the sky, but they where not in the orbital plane. As this was before sunrise, they could have been aircraft.

I'll make another attempt in the morning.
(I can move this some place else if needed, thank you)

What time did your ISS pass begin?  Mine started at 0419 Eastern and I was able to view Dragon about 2-3 minutes after ISS had set.




Only about 1 second of seperation for the 0500hrs Eastern pass on the 24th.

[Spotticus]

Why do I keep hearing about the age of the SpaceX people? Who cares what age they are. We are living longer than ever, but lately in the media / job market it appears that age discrimination is greater than ever before. I am only 34 by the way, but I am really concerned about this trend. We better not be planning to discount / discard our workers in the future just because they are over some arbitrary age limit.

I don't care if the SpaceX guys are 20 or 60 as long as they do a killer job.

You hear about it because people notice it. I dragged my 16 year old sister out of bed to watch the launch with me and she mentioned how young many of the employees seemed. She also commented on the general informality of the atmosphere (and dress).

I take it as extremely positive. All we ever see on TV is the youth as Wall ST occupiers or zoned out console gamers, or shallow FaceBook addicts, or steroid and tanned beach dwellers.

And here we have a group of young talented kids dressed in sneakers doing what very few have done before. And doing it their way. I think we need to show more of this, not less. I was personally incredibly moved and absolutely proud of them.

Just like Apollo. The average age of the folks in mission control during Apollo 11 was 26. Gene Kranz was only 35. Tom Kelly was only 33 when he became the lead Engineer on the Lunar Module. It was mostly young engineers that put Armstrong on the moon

[yg1968]

I was reading the press kit for the COTS 2/3 flight and one sentence that caught my attention is this one (on page 8):

On this mission, Dragon will be recovered by ship. Long term, once SpaceX has proven the ability to control reentry accurately, we intend to add deployable landing gear to touch down on land.

http://www.spacex.com/downloads/COTS-2-Press-Kit-5-14-12.pdf

I am not sure that I understand this sentence. I don't think that cargo Dragon will ever land on land. They may have meant that crewed Dragon will eventually land propulsively on land but if that is what they meant, they should have been clearer about this.

[jongoff]

I am not sure that I understand this sentence. I don't think that cargo Dragon will ever land on land. They may have meant that crewed Dragon will eventually land propulsively on land but if that is what they meant, they should have been clearer about this.

If you were SpaceX, and had gotten powered landing working, would you want to have two totally different recovery systems (and all the infrastructure for both), or just use the same on both vehicles?  If I were them I'd make sure the Crew and Cargo Dragons were as similar as possible, to keep commonality up and costs down.

~Jon

[yg1968]

I am not sure that I understand this sentence. I don't think that cargo Dragon will ever land on land. They may have meant that crewed Dragon will eventually land propulsively on land but if that is what they meant, they should have been clearer about this.

If you were SpaceX, and had gotten powered landing working, would you want to have two totally different recovery systems (and all the infrastructure for both), or just use the same on both vehicles?  If I were them I'd make sure the Crew and Cargo Dragons were as similar as possible, to keep commonality up and costs down.

~Jon

I agree that it makes sense but it's news to me. They were never clear on this before as far as I know.

[daver]

 I'm starting to get the feeling that SpaceX is going to pull this off.

[Lobo]

I am not sure that I understand this sentence. I don't think that cargo Dragon will ever land on land. They may have meant that crewed Dragon will eventually land propulsively on land but if that is what they meant, they should have been clearer about this.

If you were SpaceX, and had gotten powered landing working, would you want to have two totally different recovery systems (and all the infrastructure for both), or just use the same on both vehicles?  If I were them I'd make sure the Crew and Cargo Dragons were as similar as possible, to keep commonality up and costs down.

~Jon

Yea, that's how I'd read it.  I imagine once they get the LAS system and propulsive landing down, you probably won't see another water landing other than an abort or due to some problem on reentryloation. 
The only reason I could see them not propulsively landing once it's proven, is that it may eat into some of Dragon's upmass capacity to have a few mt of propellents riding along when they don't realy -need- to be.  But my guess is they'd just adjust the manifest accordingly to fit within propulsive Dragon's capabilities.  I'd imagine it would make refurbing the capsule a lot easier without a dunk in the ocean. 

[Confusador]

The only reason I could see them not propulsively landing once it's proven, is that it may eat into some of Dragon's upmass capacity to have a few mt of propellents riding along when they don't realy -need- to be.  But my guess is they'd just adjust the manifest accordingly to fit within propulsive Dragon's capabilities.  I'd imagine it would make refurbing the capsule a lot easier without a dunk in the ocean. 

Since any Dragon with Superdracos will be riding on v.1.1 or later, it's likely that they'll have more margin to work with.  I agree that it makes sense to only have one recovery method.

[rickl]

I would also assume that they would want to get a few successful propulsive landings under their belt before trying it with a human crew.

(I sense that this is going off-topic for this mission-specific discussion thread.  Hey, I think I'm starting to get the hang of this place!   )

[tigerade]

Full SpaceX webcast for those that missed it Tuesday morning:

[spectre9]

I'm starting to get the feeling that SpaceX is going to pull this off.

Dragon doesn't berth itself.

SpaceX pulled off a successful launch and orbital insertion the rest is very much a cooperative mission with NASA and international partners such as Canadarm.