SpaceX Successfully Launches Falcon 9 Rocket 190
leetrout writes "SpaceX has successfully launched a two-stage rocket, the Falcon 9, into Earth orbit from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station. 'Liftoff came after hours of delay, sparked initially by launchpad telemetry problems, then by a sailboat that strayed into a restricted area of the launch range. The day's first countdown was aborted at virtually the last second, due to a problem with the engine parameters, but the launch software was adjusted and a second countdown went all the way to the end.'"
Update: 06/04 20:16 GMT by S : Reader mrcaseyj points out Spaceflight Now's coverage, which includes a number of pictures from the launch.
Cool (Score:4, Insightful)
Good news for Obama and his vision for private industry servicing the ISS. Hopefully they won't delay their first ISS mission until 2011.
Re:Cool (Score:5, Funny)
I don't want to hear anymore about Obama and his socialist plan to move space launching into the hands of private enterprise.
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I don't want to hear anymore about Obama and his socialist plan to move space launching into the hands of private enterprise.
OK. Fine. How about this one, then?
"BP announces plans to move into commercial space flight..."
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Maybe once they clean up their first mess.
Re:Cool (Score:5, Funny)
Shoes for Industry! (Score:4, Interesting)
Necessity and Incentives Opening the Space Frontier [archive.org]
Testimony before the House Subcommittee on Space
by James Bowery, Chairman
Coalition for Science and Commerce
July 31, 1991
Mr. Chairman and Distinguished Members of the Subcommittee:
I am James Bowery, Chairman of the Coalition for Science and Commerce. We greatly appreciate the opportunity to address the subcommittee on the critical and historic topic of commercial incentives to open the space frontier.
The Coalition for Science and Commerce is a grassroots network of citizen activists supporting greater public funding for diversified scientific research and greater private funding for proprietary technology and services. We believe these are mutually reinforcing policies which have been violated to the detriment of civilization. We believe in the constitutional provision of patents of invention and that the principles of free enterprise pertain to intellectual property. We therefore see technology development as a private sector responsibility. We also recognize that scientific knowledge is our common heritage and is therefore a proper function of government. We oppose government programs that remove procurement authority from scientists, supposedly in service of them. Rather we support the inclusion, on a per-grant basis, of all funding needed to purchase the use of needed goods and services, thereby creating a scientist-driven market for commercial high technology and services. We also oppose government subsidy of technology development. Rather we support legislation and policies that motivate the intelligent investment of private risk capital in the creation of commercially viable intellectual property.
In 1990, after a 3 year effort with Congressman Ron Packard (CA) and a bipartisan team of Congressional leaders, we succeeded in passing the Launch Services Purchase Act of 1990, a law which requires NASA to procure launch services in a commercially reasonable manner from the private sector. The lobbying effort for this legislation came totally from taxpaying citizens acting in their home districts without a direct financial stake -- the kind of political intended by our country's founders, but now rarely seen in America.
We ask citizens who work with us for the most valuable thing they can contribute: The voluntary and targeted investment of time, energy and resources in specific issues and positions which they support as taxpaying citizens of the United States. There is no collective action, no slush-fund and no bureaucracy within the Coalition: Only citizens encouraging each other to make the necessary sacrifices to participate in the political process, which is their birthright and duty as Americans. We are working to give interested taxpayers a voice that can be heard above the din of lobbyists who seek ever increasing government funding for their clients.
Introduction
Americans need a frontier, not a program.
Incentives open frontiers, not plans.
If this Subcommittee hears no other message through the barrage of studies, projections and policy recommendations, it must hear this message. A reformed space policy focused on opening the space frontier through commercial incentives will make all the difference to our future as a world, a nation and as individuals.
Americans Need a Frontier
When Neil Armstrong stepped foot on the moon, we won the "space race" against the Soviets and entered two decades of diminished expectations.
The Apollo program elicited something deep within Americans. Something almost primal. Apollo was President Kennedy's "New Frontier." But when Americans found it was terminated as nothing more than a Cold War contest, we felt betrayed in ways we are still unable to articulate -- betrayed right down to our pioneering souls. The result is that Americans will never again truly believe i
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Shoes? Remind me of the Gates video [youtube.com].
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Whoosh!
That wasn't a rocket...
Re:Cool (Score:5, Funny)
[ ] you know what "sarcasm" means
[x] you don't
Re:Cool (Score:5, Funny)
[ ] You got the joke.
[x] Whoosh!
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You say that because you don't understand how much brain power it takes to think this illogically.
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That's why Hitler and Stalin were so so gay for each other.
I thought it was their mutual love of mustaches.
Re:Cool (Score:5, Funny)
That's why Hitler and Stalin were so so gay for each other.
I thought it was their mutual love of mustaches.
Indeed. In fact, the real reason Hitler invaded the Soviet Union in 1941 was because he could no longer contain his jealousy over Stalin's thick luxurious mustache which was so much nicer than his own. If only Rogaine had been available millions of lives could have been saved.
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They called it National Socialism for a reason!
Probably for similar reasons why North Korea calls itself the "Democratic People's Republic of Korea".
Re:Cool (Score:5, Funny)
They called it National Socialism for a reason!
Probably for similar reasons why North Korea calls itself the "Democratic People's Republic of Korea".
I knew it! Damn democrats!
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argh, and republicans too... i knew they were in it together.
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Re:Cool (Score:4, Informative)
They have a capsule tech called Dragon that can hold 7 crew. They actually had a dummy Dragon capsule at the top of the Falcon 9 launched today. I think the life support stuff is still a ways off, but they should be capable of launching crewed missions a few years into the future.
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There have been suggestions that it could be as little as two years off, except that the emergency systems (particularly the ejection mechanism) might not make that mark. As can be seen by the recent delays for the Falcon 9 largely because the flight termination system was awaiting certification, seemingly minor things can lengthen things dramatically.
I think two years is incredibly optimistic, but I would love for SpaceX to prove me wrong.
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I think two years is incredibly optimistic, but I would love for SpaceX to prove me wrong.
Indeed. Personally I'm betting they'll miss 2013, but match or beat 2015 which is the incredibly optimistic time scale for Ares-based manned missions to ISS.
Re:Cool (Score:4, Funny)
Oh nevermind, we'd never get enough politicians in the thing to make it worthwhile.
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But. But.If it's a dummy capsule then why can't we ...
Hehe
Oh nevermind, we'd never get enough politicians in the thing to make it worthwhile.
You might call 7 politicians launched into space not worthwhile, but I call it a start. ;)
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they should be capable of launching crewed missions a few years into the future.
Woah, time travel too? I had no idea!
Can they get them back to the present?
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Eventually...
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They have several demonstration flights this year, but the first "official" CRS cargo carrying flight will be in 2011 if all goes well. That's been the plan for a while, and I should know, because part of my job is to stuff it with stuff.
(I say "official" because there is talk about carrying a few brave payloads on the demonstration flights, but that isn't part of the contract.)
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1. I'm presuming the flight to the ISS will carry "real" cargo (such as food). Am I in the wrong?
2. How do you think the Russians are going to take this news? Considering they've got such a lucrative deal going supplying the ISS with cargo?
With this all said, I'm glad the launch was a success. Hopefully NASA can start focusing on the Ares 5 heavy lift (or you know... just take an Atlas 5 off the shelf!) for going into HEO and beyond.
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I doubt the Russians are bothered. They don't have any exclusive contracts for resupply other than their obligations and commitments anyway. Both the ESA ATV and Japanese HTV both have flown successful cargo missions to the space station, and are expected to become essential to the resupply of the station over the next few years. I can't remember about the ATV, but the HTV certainly carries a lot more cargo than the Progress freighters and can be attached to the larger ports on the American side of the s
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1. Correct. :+D
2. Just fine.
The CRS flights are just one more piece to the puzzle. In the post Shuttle world, we'll have Soyuz, Progress, ATV, HTV, Orbital, and SpaceX. The SpaceX vehicle gives us back a large downmass capability which is going away when the Shuttle retires. Upmass we got, downmass not so much.
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The space station was constipated?
Constipation station?
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Several demonstration flights this year? Despite what the SpaceX site says, there was a news story last week [spacenews.com] wherein SpaceX had told NASA that there would be at least an eight-month gap between the first two COTS demo flights. The first, according to the story, is still apparently planned for sometime in July, but an eight-month gap suggests that the C2 flight won't be until at least March 2011. Another story yesterday [spaceflightnow.com] mentions that if things went well today, they would be looking to skip one of the COTS
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Correct. NASA is redundant as a launch-services company. It should turn its attention to regulation and oversight of flight safety and space access, rather than production and operation of vehicles. It's the possessor of a massive amount of intellectual property, and it should manage that for the nation's maximum profit, but otherwise it should look at getting out of the science business as well.
Re:Cool (Score:4, Insightful)
Most important launch in decades (Score:5, Interesting)
What makes this one of the most important rocket launches in history is that, unlike at other rocket companies, the founder, Elon Musk, is determined to make a reusable rocket. The first stage of this rocket has been fitted with parachutes and covered with cork to protect it from the heat of reentry so that it can be recovered and studied in hopes of making them reusable in the future. The success of this launch solidifies the success of Spacex, and thereby dramaitcally increases the chances of huge benefits to humanity from much more affordable space launch. Also, the other rocket companies are probably very worried about losing all their business to Spacex now.
Re:Most important launch in decades (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Most important launch in decades (Score:5, Informative)
The cork is for protection during reentry. From the Spacex updates page:
Re:Most important launch in decades (Score:5, Informative)
Also on the Spacex updates page you can see the parachutes mounted in the interstage, implying that the entire first stage will be parachuted down. I would think the engine cluster would sink without the fuel tanks for buoyancy.
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Only the engine cluster is designed to be 'reusable' -it separates from the first stage fuel tank after booster separation.
Considering that the engines are probably 90% of the cost of the first stage, that makes sense; empty fuel tanks are cheap compared to rocket engines.
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But most of the cost of solid rocket motors is the fuel, so making them reusable doesn't save much on launch costs.
From what I remember, NASA would probably save money if they stopped recovering the SRBs and just built new ones each time. They're basically just big metal tubes which require a lot of refurbishing before they're ready to fly again, so there's a substantial cost to reusing them.
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Which all points to the folly of making "reusable" the goal. We don't want reusable, we want cheap. The SRBs cost more to re-use than to build from scratch, sadly enough. As long as SpaceX is free from government procurement rules and congressional earmarks, however, I'm sure they'll do well on "cheap".
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No, that's not how it works at all. Senators tell NASA what to build and where to build it, otherwise money might get spent in the wrong state! NASA has serious problems, but unlike a lot of places NASAs problems are externally imposed.
Re:Most important launch in decades (Score:5, Informative)
See this page [nasa.gov] for pictures of NASA ships doing the impossible: towing recovered solid rocket boosters back to Kennedy Space Center.
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I'd be very leery of reusing these things (yes I know the shuttle boosters were reused). Making them sturdy enough to survive multiple uses has got to cost you mass that could go into fuel and payload. Recycling them is a great idea, though.
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wait. nemmind. these are liquid-fueled, not solid.
yes, liquid-fueled rocket engines are a mass of pumps and tubes that require enormous expense to forge, and come in only one type: honking tough.
they're all but impossible to break, so yes, there would be a lot of reusable parts on them that would survive many launches, descents, recoveries, and refurbs.
Re:Most important launch in decades (Score:5, Informative)
Look at that thing that's attached to your keyboard and mouse. The computer. The impetus for it's development was space. ICBMs can't fly in the atmosphere - they go into space. The little computers in your car that do everything from running the engine to your mp3 player? An offshoot. The ceramics that make the light turbines possible? Ditto. Better methods to monitor patients? Better ways to test materials? Better ways to model materials?
The space race did three things
And this is all in addition to the benefit of now being able to say: Nuke it from orbit - it's the only way to be sure! [google.com]
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I'm pretty sure that the impetus for the development of the computer was codebreaking early in WW2, before anyone had the idea of using a computer to control one, because, after all, in WW2 computers were the size of basketball courts.
The development of microcircuits that make little computers several orders of magnitude more powerful than the original basketball-court sized computers was what the space-age promoted, although the invention of the microcircuit was a rather natural progression from the invent
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Didn't we learn from the Space Shuttle that reusable spacecraft cost just as much to launch as rebuilding a new craft every time?
Considering that a shuttle orbiter alone costs over $2,000,000,000 while a single shuttle launch costs around $150,000,000, the answer would have to be no. Most of the cost of the shuttle program is fixed costs like maintaining KSC which have to be paid regardless of whether the shuttle flies and don't change much with increased flight rates up to a dozen or so per year.
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A reusable system could be cheaper, if you could launch it once a week instead of 1-2 times a year. The shuttle ended up having too many maintenance problems to make that kind of schedule possible, but that doesn't mean it can't be done.
The other billionaires are the crazy ones. (Score:5, Insightful)
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Billionaires don't hold on to their wealth, though. It's always invested into something--that's how they became billionaires in the first place. If you kidnapped a billionaire and demanded half his fortune for ransom, he'd have difficulty getting it to you because most of it isn't in assets he could immediately liquidate.
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But if you invest your money only to keep it, you haven't spent it. Most billionaires have their money in these kind of investments (real estate, stocks, bonds, things like that). Using the money to start a technology company, on the other hand, is spending it. I approve. I think everyone should spend all their money this way (you know, to the extant it's possible I mean, obviously you have to buy food and other essential things).
Anyway, just to elaborate on my earlier point: Most people don't make these
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Using the money to start a technology company, on the other hand, is spending it.
Well, no, you have it backwards.
Investing is the act of purchasing capital (equipment) and labor to produce something of value. It adds to productivity and production, and thus grows the economy.
That stuff about buying "real estate, stocks, bonds, things like that" is colloquially known as investment, but since it does not actually increase productive capacity it is not investment, it is simply speculation. Of course, anyone
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Very exciting (Score:5, Interesting)
I'm making a note here -- huge success!
Hopefully this will reinvigorate the US market for launch vehicles. The satellite-manufacturing spin-off company of the research centre where I work currently launches most if not all of its payloads on decommissioned Russian ICBMs. I hope that in a couple of years, SpaceX's stable of launchers will be a practical and economical alternative!
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... Even though you broke my heart, And killed me. And tore me to pieces. And threw every piece into a fire. As they burned it hurt because I was so happy for you!
Does the last Atlantis pilot read /. ? (Score:4, Funny)
I figure we slashdotters would climb on just about anything too...
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Why am I not shocked and surprised to see that Dominic Antonelli, Lieutenant Commander, USN, is a Naval Aviator?
Sailors will be sailors...
Very Cool (Score:2)
I tried to watch it from here in Orlando, but too many clouds were in the way. Went back inside and watched the feed - very impressive.
As a kid I dreamed that I might one day visit the moon, or maybe even mars. That's not going to happen, but hopefully somebody will get it all worked out in time for my grand-kids maybe.
Video? (Score:2)
Does anyone have a link to launch video? Thanks.
-molo
Re:Video? (Score:4, Informative)
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Thanks for the link. I was hoping for one without the "buffering.. ", but it was good enough to get the idea. Thanks.
-molo
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SpaceX will probably release a high quality video in the next few days like they always do. Look out for it here [spacex.com].
Giant wasp from outer space? (Score:5, Funny)
I laughed at the feeble attempts of the giant alien wasp to stop the launch [cnn.com] at T -5 or so. Was that you, K'breel, or one of your minions?
Impressive recovery (Score:5, Interesting)
Earlier today they had a launch abort at T -0:00:00. I happened to watch the webcast on the SpaceX site; the countdown got to zero and my impression was that ignition was underway when the launch was aborted.
Had they used solid rockets, they'd have been SOL at this late stage.
Also, finding the cause and then being able to launch inside 1.5 hours is rather quick. ISTR early Shuttle launches where the slightest setback resulted in putting the clock back to T -12h.
And was the countdown off, or was the webcast not properly synchronized? I saw liftoff taking place at T -0:00:02.
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To be fair, comparing reboot on the shuttle to this is a little unfair, since STS launched for the first time with people on board. Nonetheless, quite impressive.
As far as the liftoff occurring early -- I see it too. The stream was laggy, so that could be it, but it also seemed like the engines were running rather hot (second stage engine cutoff was early but it nailed its target orbit), so it could be that the sensors detected that it was dangerous to continue to hold it down and let go early.
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Launching the first time with folks on board shows poor project management. It means you put PR ahead of good engineering and costs. If you have to blow up a couple rockets to cut costs and improve reliability that is the way to go.
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Or it could mean that you have designed a system that requires a human in the loop to be reusable. Which is pretty lame too..
Re:Impressive recovery (Score:4, Interesting)
STS was designed with a lot of astronaut input, and it was designed so you had to have people on board -- landing gear could not be controlled automatically. Astronauts want nothing more than to keep flying, and to feel like they're pilots and not cargo. Having a spacecraft be designed by the military test-pilot variety of astronaut is often just asking for trouble.
Amusingly, John Young, the commander for STS-1 has recently said that it was foolish to be on that flight.
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BUt obviously, out of the thousands of things that could go wrong it was silly to claim the landing gear as the only thing that needed manual control.
They just wanted to fly spacecraft...
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"And was the countdown off, or was the webcast not properly synchronized? I saw liftoff taking place at T -0:00:02."
Engine start takes place at T-0. For the first few seconds clamps hold the rocket down to the pad until the engines rev up to full power for liftoff.
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I saw liftoff taking place at T -0:00:02.
Yes, I was puzzled by that too. The rocket had clearly left the ground before the on-screen countdown timer reached zero.
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Space Shuttle is also a little larger and a little more complex. I'm using "little" in the loosest possible way. Comparing SpaceX to Shuttle is like comparing F-150 with Peterbuilt (there you go, a truck analogy :)
All the more reason to not screw around with shuttle launches for routine maintenance trips.
Utterly useless cheering (Score:2, Informative)
(maybe the NASA cuts won't eviscerate spaceflight after all)
Re:Utterly useless cheering (Score:4, Informative)
What cuts? I thought Obama increased NASA's budget? Did I miss something?
Excellent! (Score:3, Insightful)
Hrmmm (Score:2)
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Yes; about 2 years in orbit is the estimate.
This test capsule had no functional heatshield (apparently), so it will burn up high in the atmosphere when it comes down.
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Yes, although crashing back down just means it'll burn up in the atmosphere. No risk to anyone on the ground.
Estimates for orbit lifetime are about 1 year from what I've seen. What brings them down is that there is still a tiny bit of atmosphere in low orbits, and this provides enough drag to slow things down slowly but surely.
Odd-looking roll (Score:4, Insightful)
During the second stage burn, the vehicle appeared to start to rotate, gradually accelerating as the burn continued. Does anyone know if this was part of the planned ascent profile, or something gone wrong?
It's hard to tell due to the angle of the rocketcam camera, but it didn't appear to be rolling around the vehicle's axis --- which makes it more of a tumble. OTOH, that might have been an optical illusion. I gather that the Dragon demonstrator that was being launched didn't have any propulsion, so this could have been planned to spin-stabilise it, but... it did look odd.
I don't want to put any dampeners on the launch, though. For a first launch of a prototype rocket, it's still a fantastic achievement to get to orbit first time.
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I thought it looked funny too. Commentator didn't say anything about it except that it was going really well, so I assume it was planned. I was thinking the same as you - spin-stabilizing it. Still, I'd like to know more.
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Considering how well they hit their orbit, and that they hit it early (engine appeared to cut-off before the official time), it had to be an on-axis roll. Otherwise they would have been wasting their thrust and would have taken longer to achieve the desired orbit.
I'd guess that it was something expected but not necessarily on purpose.
Re:Odd-looking roll (Score:5, Informative)
From Elon Musk's press telecon, as transcribed by flatoday.net:
"We achieved a "near bulls-eye" on the orbit. There was a little more roll than was expected. It didn't affect the mission. It is something to be investigated and refined. We're very happy with the second stage performance."
This isn't a spin-stabilized spacecraft, so I'd call what I saw more than just a "little roll"... still, damned impressive that the launcher can make an orbital bullseye while having that much uncontrolled spin.
Obviously (Score:3, Funny)
This just proves how far CGI has gotten. They've been able to shut down the California sound stage.
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Now now, everyone on Slashdot knows the fake moon landings were filmed in a soundstage on Mars, not in California!
Beautiful Launch - pics and video (Score:2)
Nice pictures (Score:2, Interesting)
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Well, they had explicitly demonstrated that ability earlier when they did the launch pad test-firing. Being able to do that in the first place is a big advantage of liquid fueled rockets over solid fuel. But yeah, it's definitely cool being able to see that a real last-second abort works just like it did in the tests. Major kudos to the operations team (who I believe, like the previous test, are SpaceX employees which marks a break from traditional launches), and of course to the engineers and machinists
Re:Cool. (Score:5, Insightful)
It's not the elimination of the NASA manned rocket program. It's about the descoping of the poorly conceived and poorly executed NASA manned rocket design and manufacturing program; whose significant purpose was employment in Alabama congressional districts. A private contractor will not decide on the mission goals or the payload. One can have robust manned space program without designing the rockets.
In 1965 NASA had to design and build its own microcomputers. NASA does not do so any more; astronauts use standard laptop computers on the ISS.
Re:Cool. (Score:5, Informative)
The article says SpaceX got $278 million from NASA to develop the rocket. Apparently we spent $1.500 billion on Ares in FY10 alone [parabolicarc.com], and spent $445 million [cnet.com] on a single sub-orbital test flight for Ares in '09.
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Re:Cool. (Score:5, Informative)
Huh?
No one wants to killed manned NASA flights, just the boondoggle that is their latest vehicle project. It only serves to keep shuttle makers in business.
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It seems to me that Obama and the OMB want to kill manned exploratory spaceflight. And even more than that. Consider that everyone but USA is going to the moon and soon. But so far not manned. Of course, last I looked Bolton had to check with OMB to go to the john. I am sure OMB just cannot justify it from a bean counter perspective, but they really really want a mars colony. On the other hand, there is widespread suspicion that Obama and OMB are breaking the law with their cutbacks. All this is rea
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Amusingly enough, the pictures at supersonic speed look like a condom around the Rocket, looks like its preparing to rape NASA the safe way.
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A bit like this [wimtim.com]