SpaceX Successfully Launches Used Dragon Cargo Ship in Historic First

[Megalith]

The viability of reusable spacecraft has been further cemented by SpaceX’s success in sending a refurbished Dragon cargo craft into space and returning the Falcon 9 booster safely back to Earth. The Dragon, which originally flew in 2014, is on another cargo mission to the ISS: the craft is expected to deliver 6,000 pounds of supplies and science equipment when it docks at the space station’s Harmony module tomorrow. SpaceX’s ultimate goal is reusability of all major components of their launch vehicles.

For the first time in the history of commercial spaceflight, a used spacecraft has blasted off on a mission to deliver cargo to the International Space Station (ISS). After lightning strikes delayed the launch on Thursday (June 1), lingering storm clouds parted just enough for SpaceX's Falcon 9 rocket to safely lift off from NASA's historic Pad 39A at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida today (June 3). The Falcon 9 rocket, topped with SpaceX's first refurbished Dragon cargo craft, took to the skies at 5:07 p.m. EDT (2107 GMT). About 8 minutes after liftoff, the first-stage rocket booster returned to Earth to stick a landing at nearby Cape Canaveral Air Force Station.

 

[deaedius]

So freaking impressive. Love watching the landing of the rocket, so graceful!

 

[DrLobotomy]

I believe there was a Chinese experiment on board concerning radiation effects on DNA that went on this launch.

 

[Ducman69]

6K lbs isn't a lot, but I bet the real game changer here is cost for small launches. Still nothing made that rivals the Saturn V big boy though of the 60s.

 

[leezard]

One of the women that volunteers with the German Shepherd rescue I work withs son is one of the engineers for spaceX. Im not sure what his roll is but she was talking about this today and how proud she was of her son.

 

[sirmonkey1985]

6K lbs isn't a lot, but I bet the real game changer here is cost for small launches. Still nothing made that rivals the Saturn V big boy though of the 60s.

once the heavy launch rockets are finished by nasa and spaceX things should start to get interesting again with space travel. i also agree with you on the saturn V, to bad we have no clue how the saturn V was built thanks to nasa's incompetence when they miss placed all the apollo blueprints/documentation after they started planning for it's replacement in the late 70's. they even went as far as asking the russians if they had copies of it but most of that was lost after the fall of the soviet union.

edit: nevermind, thanks Ski for the article. i'm not sure how i missed that after all these years.

 

[Ski]

Too bad we have no clue how the Saturn V was built thanks to Nasa's incompetence when they misplaced [strike=1]all the[/s] Apollo blueprints/documentation after they started planning for it's replacement in the late 70's. They even went as far as asking the Russians if they had copies of it but most of that was lost after the fall of the Soviet Union.

I got you covered Walt Whitman, here's a link to answer your question. I even hooked you up by fixing those spelling and grammatical errors which gave me a partial stroke as well. Hell I ain't even mad that you didn't cite any sources backing up that booty chatta'. Bird up!

 

[krotch]

What's historic exactly? I mean, the space shuttle and it's solid rocket boosters were reusable. The external tank wasn't. Is it just cause it's commercial?

 

[Deleted member 184142]

What's historic exactly? I mean, the space shuttle and it's solid rocket boosters were reusable. The external tank wasn't. Is it just cause it's commercial?

Commercial and cost. They have been doing things for a fraction of the cost that it would be for the shuttle to do. I don't agree with Government spending tax dollars, but out of everything they spend it on, space and research is waaaaay at the back of my list, and cheaper launches means more launches/supplies/research, thats only good for everyone.

 

[Garniplasky]

SpaceX is commercial?

So all the companies that NASA contracted with in the past are not commercial??

Huh???!??

 

[Deleted member 184142]

SpaceX is commercial?

So all the companies that NASA contracted with in the past are not commercial??

Huh???!??

Most contractors make something for NASA, they are not a full space flight/cargo company, big difference there.

 

[Glyphic]

Also with the ISS capturing the Dragon capsule as of a few hours ago, this marks the first time a vehicle has visited the ISS more than once since the last Space Shuttle mission. And it's historic because landing first stage rockets has become routine now, it is no longer experimental.

 

[katanaD]

all the swarming bugs on the camera on 1st stage touch down made me chuckle

 

[Xrave]

What's historic exactly? I mean, the space shuttle and it's solid rocket boosters were reusable. The external tank wasn't. Is it just cause it's commercial?

Due to many different design reasons, the end cost of flying a shuttle mission was multiple times more expensive per pound than launching a payload on an expendable rocket, which was one of the main reasons the program was canceled. When the shuttle was flying NASA had to use it. After canceling NASA could use other cheaper methods of getting to space.

The couple benefits of the shuttle at the time was a a very large payload capability (others now have more) and the ability to service satellites with people.

 

[workshop35]

Most contractors make something for NASA, they are not a full space flight/cargo company, big difference there.

United Launch Alliance
http://www.ulalaunch.com/

They've been doing it a lot longer than spacex

 

[Deleted member 184142]

United Launch Alliance
http://www.ulalaunch.com/

They've been doing it a lot longer than spacex

All of their rockets are also expendable launch systems, meaning they are only used once, this is the main factor here. They are also close to going out of business, there was a lot of flak the government got because they gave a block sold launch contract to ULA where each launch was 460 million, while SpaceX proposed a contract for only 90 million a launch, thats not a small price difference.

 

[workshop35]

All of their rockets are also expendable launch systems, meaning they are only used once, this is the main factor here. They are also close to going out of business, there was a lot of flak the government got because they gave a block sold launch contract to ULA where each launch was 460 million, while SpaceX proposed a contract for only 90 million a launch, thats not a small price difference.

They also have a much better track record than spacex. Atlas is 100% success rate. Vulcan is in the works. I dont see them going out of business anytime soon.

 

[Deleted member 184142]

They also have a much better track record than spacex. Atlas is 100% success rate. Vulcan is in the works. I dont see them going out of business anytime soon.

SpaceX has a 93% rate, for 370 million (per launch) cheaper, which is more than the cost of most payloads. And the last failure that is included for SpaceX was a static rocket test, not actual flight, but was included because the client required them to have the payload in the rocket for the test, something SpaceX strongly recommended not doing. This is a business, track records and cost come into play. Also ULA is under investigation for bribes for defense department contracts for getting launch contracts, ULA also stated that they need to get all NASA, civil government and military contracts or they will be forced to close. If you think you know better than those who run ULA....Ok?

however none of that has to do with the fact this story and my answer to the question is that this is for a reusable launch vehicle.

 

[Rahh]

They brought something back at 27:52 in that video and it's huge!

 

[Chebsy]

Congratulations to the SpaceX team, they made it look so easy !!

 

[workshop35]

SpaceX has a 93% rate, for 370 million (per launch) cheaper, which is more than the cost of most payloads. And the last failure that is included for SpaceX was a static rocket test, not actual flight, but was included because the client required them to have the payload in the rocket for the test, something SpaceX strongly recommended not doing. This is a business, track records and cost come into play. Also ULA is under investigation for bribes for defense department contracts for getting launch contracts, ULA also stated that they need to get all NASA, civil government and military contracts or they will be forced to close. If you think you know better than those who run ULA....Ok?

however none of that has to do with the fact this story and my answer to the question is that this is for a reusable launch vehicle.

Don't get me wrong, I actually like what spacex is doing despite working for one of their competitors until about a month ago. I have seen first hand how seemingly trivial hardware costs obscene amounts of money just because its going to space. I like how they are pushing the legacy companies to innovate and adjust their business model to stay competitive. However, when they do things like falsify data to pass a NASA cert for a cleanroom (second-hand knowledge, they also got caught), it makes me wonder where else they are cutting corners. I don't want to see accidents and potential deaths to save some money.

It would be interesting to see how much the 7% less in success rate ends up costing their company/clients. And how the proposed contract gap would be tightened by it. If they can catch up with ULA in terms of reliability then they'll be a lot more disruptive than they are now. And like you stated earlier, if that happens then everyone wins.

 

[Deleted member 184142]

Don't get me wrong, I actually like what spacex is doing despite working for one of their competitors until about a month ago. I have seen first hand how seemingly trivial hardware costs obscene amounts of money just because its going to space. I like how they are pushing the legacy companies to innovate and adjust their business model to stay competitive. However, when they do things like falsify data to pass a NASA cert for a cleanroom (second-hand knowledge, they also got caught), it makes me wonder where else they are cutting corners. I don't want to see accidents and potential deaths to save some money.

It would be interesting to see how much the 7% less in success rate ends up costing their company/clients. And how the proposed contract gap would be tightened by it. If they can catch up with ULA in terms of reliability then they'll be a lot more disruptive than they are now. And like you stated earlier, if that happens then everyone wins.

They had one launch failure due to a client choice with one of the first version of the rocket, the second failure with the current rocket model was a static test, and has no actual launch failures. The payload was only lost because the client insisted on it being in the rocket for testing, failure was also during fueling. Remove the non-flight test failure and the current rocket has a 100% success rate. It's a new company, with a new and evolving launch system trying to do things the other are not even coming close to dealing with and at a fraction of the cost.

The first loss for the ISS resupply, like most, was mostly food supplies, rest were computers, HDDs, cameras etc etc, where the cost of the launch is more than the payload, it makes no sense at ALL to pay 370 million more for that launch, you would have to lose 5 payloads EVERY SINGLE LAUNCH to make up the cost difference. Keep in mind that most expensive satellite payloads cost less than the single launch from ULA, you could build and launch two from SpaceX for the price of a single ULA launch and still have money left over.

 

[krotch]

Due to many different design reasons, the end cost of flying a shuttle mission was multiple times more expensive per pound than launching a payload on an expendable rocket, which was one of the main reasons the program was canceled. When the shuttle was flying NASA had to use it. After canceling NASA could use other cheaper methods of getting to space.

The couple benefits of the shuttle at the time was a a very large payload capability (others now have more) and the ability to service satellites with people.

I know all that, but doesn't explain why it's historic. It being done by a commercial entity seems to be the only thing making it historic.

 

[Xrave]

Oh, then yea, probably just because it's a private company doing a reusable system.

 

[workshop35]

They had one launch failure due to a client choice with one of the first version of the rocket, the second failure with the current rocket model was a static test, and has no actual launch failures. The payload was only lost because the client insisted on it being in the rocket for testing, failure was also during fueling. Remove the non-flight test failure and the current rocket has a 100% success rate. It's a new company, with a new and evolving launch system trying to do things the other are not even coming close to dealing with and at a fraction of the cost.

The first loss for the ISS resupply, like most, was mostly food supplies, rest were computers, HDDs, cameras etc etc, where the cost of the launch is more than the payload, it makes no sense at ALL to pay 370 million more for that launch, you would have to lose 5 payloads EVERY SINGLE LAUNCH to make up the cost difference. Keep in mind that most expensive satellite payloads cost less than the single launch from ULA, you could build and launch two from SpaceX for the price of a single ULA launch and still have money left over.

Here's something I googled up

https://timeline.com/spacex-musk-rocket-failures-c22975218fbe

Good timeline of the failures. Of course they charge less, the risk factor is much higher. By the time they figure out everything that needs to be checked they'll be just as expensive as anyone else who already knows how extensive the testing and development needs to be before you have a 100% reliable system. We would test motors after cold conditioning, hot conditioning, after sitting for years sometimes, x-ray them, shock them with extreme temperatures, batch testing on the propellant pre and post cure (solid fuels), you name it. All of that costs money, and it adds up especially when you're on a tight schedule and having to pay for ungodly amounts of overtime. Sure, you could probably get away with not doing all of it, but you have a much more robust system because of it.