Author Topic: LIVE: SpaceX Dragon COTS Demo (C2+) FD4 UPDATES (Read 293995 times)

Silmfeanor · « **Reply #600 on:** 05/25/2012 05:14 pm »

This conference is slightly unconventional

Chris Bergin · « **Reply #601 on:** 05/25/2012 05:15 pm »

"ELON ELON ELON".

Cheers for NASA too!

Wow, this isn't like your usual NASA presser

Chris Bergin · « **Reply #602 on:** 05/25/2012 05:17 pm »

Alan talking about the tiny little factory for SpaceX when he met Elon. He knew they had something special.

Gushing praise for SpaceX

Big cheer for Ms Shotwell

mrmandias · « **Reply #603 on:** 05/25/2012 05:18 pm »

By the way these SpaceX guys are acting, we should be following this presser in the party thread.

mmeijeri · « **Reply #604 on:** 05/25/2012 05:18 pm »

Lindenmoyer must have sore grin muscles, he's been wearing that grin for days!

Chris Bergin · « **Reply #605 on:** 05/25/2012 05:18 pm »

Never seen a presser like this, ever!

"Just glad we played a small part" - Alan. Almost in tears.

Chris Bergin · « **Reply #606 on:** 05/25/2012 05:19 pm »

HA! NASA PAO guy (he's a nice guy) looks like he's got a "What just happened" expression!

cro-magnon gramps · « **Reply #607 on:** 05/25/2012 05:19 pm »

beyond words

baddux · « **Reply #608 on:** 05/25/2012 05:20 pm »

Clips from the ISS are shown. Finally they are real after "artists impressions" and animations!

Chris Bergin · « **Reply #609 on:** 05/25/2012 05:20 pm »

Reshowing the berthing, no new video, it's replays.

Cargo preps the bulk of the mission.

Lobo · « **Reply #610 on:** 05/25/2012 05:29 pm »

Quote from: Chris Bergin on 05/25/2012 03:54 pm

For me, this install stage/capture was the big deal. This is history, where people will be reading this all back in years to come.

Huh? Sorry, I didn't catch that, I'm too busy playing with my iPhone and watching "Jersey Shore" to pay attention to history...

Tru dat Chris, true dat....

Silmfeanor · « **Reply #611 on:** 05/25/2012 05:30 pm »

This is during the presser - it's still there, it wasnt all a dream

Chris Bergin · « **Reply #612 on:** 05/25/2012 05:30 pm »

Questions.

Will note the interesting parts.

Mike S outlining the resupply fleet. Orbital and SpaceX will provide the lion's share.

About the approach and the holds (thermal imagers etc. and LIDAR).

Holly: Got to 250 meters out. Dragon was watching the data from two Thermal Imagers. Because of the Sun, they wanted to hold until the sun passed by. LIDAR find it hard to hit a single point. Allowed for some tuning of the software. You only need one LIDAR, but at points there were two LIDARs. One LIDAR went to uncoverged at Capture. Not unexpected for a test flight.

Elon: (HA, talking about lasers, and does the Dr Evil quotations!

) "Total Dr Evil format". On the future, talks about the need for reusable rockets. Chances for making life multi-planetary just went up today.

mrmandias · « **Reply #613 on:** 05/25/2012 05:31 pm »

"Dragon has these things called lasers. There are two of them."

Ah, punch drunk much?

Beemer · « **Reply #614 on:** 05/25/2012 05:34 pm »

Tremendous achievement for SpaceX and NASA, congratulations to everyone who had a hand in making this happen.

krytek · « **Reply #615 on:** 05/25/2012 05:35 pm »

Quote from: mrmandias on 05/25/2012 05:31 pm

"Dragon has these things called lasers. There are two of them."

Ah, punch drunk much?

Elon Musk: had to ban alcohol from the premises

kttopdad · « **Reply #616 on:** 05/25/2012 05:37 pm »

Most recent schedule shows CRS1 in September. Woot!

Chris Bergin · « **Reply #617 on:** 05/25/2012 05:39 pm »

On when CRS begins for SpaceX.

Mke S notes they met the objectives to get to Station. Also objectives for depature and safe re-entry. Still work that needs to be done.

Assuming the objectives are completed, we can move right into the next flight.

Alan doesn't think it'll take long to review the objectives.

Elon notes booze was banned from the premises, but now they might get some champers in.

Mike S on Orbital: August test flight with just Antares. Demo flight mid Decemeber, maybe sooner to mid October if the test flight goes well. CRS-1 is April, 2013.

Elon notes the critical steps have been achieved for this flight. Fair to celebrate a significant victory.

Lobo · « **Reply #618 on:** 05/25/2012 05:40 pm »

Quote from: SpaceX_MS on 05/25/2012 04:42 pm

How did you like that? HOW DID YOU LIKE THAT!!! Game face all day and I'm not ashamed to say I'm now in tears.

And thank you so much for this site Chris. I don't post much outside of L2, and I think I've said it before, but I want to post it. This is NSF. This is a site started to cover Shuttle and NASA. To see this amount of support and coverage for us is special. We appreciate the respect and giving us a level playing field.

GO DRAGON!!!

Assuming the rest of the mission goes as planned and there's a successful reentry and splashdown, the -other-thing this means, is we literally -could- now send crews back up on Dragon right away if we wanted to/had to.
Yea, I know there's no LAS system yet, but there wasn't for GEmini or for STS, and we flew both of those. So we have chosen to fly without them in the past.
Not saying we want to necessarily, but we now -can- if we really wanted to or needed to. And that's a pretty good feeling...
:-)

Good job SpaceX!

mrmandias · « **Reply #619 on:** 05/25/2012 05:48 pm »

Musk makes a point of saying that he does know the difference between berthing and docking, but says 'docking' to be more intelligible to the public. Made me laugh.