LIVE: SpaceX Dragon CRS-2 (SpX-2) EOM (Unberth, Entry, Splashdown) UPDATES

[Lars_J]

Musk: Dragon v2, substantial upgrade capable of landing on land. Windows for astronauts. Pop-out landing legs. Should be unveiled later this year, hopefully.

[ArbitraryConstant]

My note: he's sliding back and forth between 1.1 descriptions and landing gear descriptions.  I interpret that to mean that 1.1 is close, design wise, to the RTLS landing version

I got that too.

Press quite correctly focusing on RTLS.

[meekGee]

Dragon 2.0:

oh, he teases...   "quite a significant upgrade"  "quite big windows"  "will be fun for the public to watch"  "legs that pop out"  "real alien spaceship"

"We didn't really know what we were doing" with first generation Dragon.

Unveiling "later this year"

My comment:  This goes back to the numbering scheme.  This capsule is called Dragon 2.0, not 1.1.    I think that's significant, since F9 1.1 is provides good calibration on what they mean by major and minor revision numbers.  (Same with Merlin 1A - 1D).

Another observation: If not obvious, when Elon uses diminishing words like "quite", or "rather", it's not because he's talking about less significant things - it's just an understating style of speech.

[Lars_J]

Conference ended...

[meekGee]

Press questions were very good.

[Lars_J]

Another observation: If not obvious, when Elon uses diminishing words like "quite", or "rather", it's not because he's talking about less significant things - it's just an understating style of speech.

But don't make the mistake of interpreting that literally. For example, he mentions that they "didn't know what they were doing" when they designed the current Dragon. That is clearly not true.

[Targeteer]

Press questions were very good.

I might have asked about the extra 200 pounds of returned cargo and verified the refrigerated payload arrived as planned--presumably true because continuous cargo power was confirmed.

These mission focused events tend to be diverted to big picture and future events because opportunities to access the key players are pretty limited.

[tigerade]

Dragon 2.0:

Unveiling "later this year"

I would speculate that he's talking about the launch abort test later this year.  Should be exciting to watch.

[Kabloona]

"We didn't really know what we were doing" with first generation Dragon.

Just to clarify, I believe Elon was talking specifically about *water recovery* of Dragon, saying they chose water recovery because it was the simplest recovery option to start with... they had no experience in that arena, but now they've got water recovery figured out with a few Dragon missions under their belt, but would like to get away from the hassle of needing a small ship fleet for recovery...

[Borklund]

Will the whole thing be uploaded at some point, or did anyone here capture it?

[cambrianera]

"We didn't really know what we were doing" with first generation Dragon.

Just to clarify, I believe Elon was talking specifically about *water recovery* of Dragon, saying they chose water recovery because it was the simplest recovery option to start with... they had no experience in that arena, but now they've got water recovery figured out with a few Dragon missions under their belt, but would like to get away from the hassle of needing a small ship fleet for recovery...

Agree with you; landing on land is a major operational change, justifying the 1.0 to 2.0 step.

[Jason1701]

My comment:  This goes back to the numbering scheme.  This capsule is called Dragon 2.0, not 1.1.    I think that's significant, since F9 1.1 is provides good calibration on what they mean by major and minor revision numbers.  (Same with Merlin 1A - 1D).

Or Elon wants satellite company boards to not get worried about how much they're changing the rocket, but they don't care about the capsule..

[Lars_J]

Will the whole thing be uploaded at some point, or did anyone here capture it?

Yes, NASA will provide a recording, they said. But someone else might upload one quicker.

[meekGee]

My comment:  This goes back to the numbering scheme.  This capsule is called Dragon 2.0, not 1.1.    I think that's significant, since F9 1.1 is provides good calibration on what they mean by major and minor revision numbers.  (Same with Merlin 1A - 1D).

Or Elon wants satellite company boards to not get worried about how much they're changing the rocket, but they don't care about the capsule..

I like this interpretation too.   Makes perfect sense.   I was amazed at how quickly everyone went along with the "minor" 0.1 change there.

[Elmar Moelzer]

http://www.newspacewatch.com/articles/nasaspacex-teleconference-review-of-crs-2.html
Interesting bits about the first stage recovery attempt on the first Falcon 9 1.1 flight and they will present Dragon 2 later this year. Propulsive return to launchpad next year.

[psloss]

Not sure if this was already posted else, but saw the tail end of it on TV a few minutes ago...

"SpaceX Dragon, NASA Science Cargo Back On Dry Land"

[QuantumG]

Anyone get the mp3?

[Lars_J]

SpaceX just tweeted this image, of the recovered Dragon on the boat:

[Space Pete]

SpaceX just tweeted this image, of the recovered Dragon on the boat:

Hi-res version here:

http://spacexlaunch.zenfolio.com/p190296859/h59b7f310#h59b7f310

[yg1968]

Will the whole thing be uploaded at some point, or did anyone here capture it?

Yes, NASA will provide a recording, they said. But someone else might upload one quicker.

Argg... Completely forgot about the press conference. I wanted to record it. Hopefully NASA posts it in its entirety.