Skip to main content

With the Most Reused Parts Ever, SpaceX's Mission Successfully Sent Its Cargo to the ISS

With the Most Reused Parts Ever, SpaceX's Mission Successfully Sent Its Cargo to the ISS


SpaceX has done two in the span of just four days. Today, the company again launched its Falcon 9 rocket, this time with 2,630 kilograms (5800 pounds) of deliveries to the International Space Station, from the base in Cape Canaveral, Florida.
Spacex launch video
The theme for this launch: reusable. One of the Falcon boosters first flew on the CRS-12 mission in August 2017. And this particular Dragon module flew in April 2016, on the CRS-8 mission. It’s the first time two reused (or, as SpaceX calls it, “flight-proven”) components have been combined in a single mission.
This marks SpaceX’s 14th successful flight for Dragon, and 15th flight overall (CRS-7, in 2015, failed before reaching orbit). It’s the end of the line for this particular first stage — SpaceX did not attempt to recover it, though the engineers did gather information about it to improve future missions.
Today’s launch was perfectly choreographed, no surprises. It’s a testament to how efficiently SpaceX now operates with missions like these. They’ve really got it down to a science. Things can still happen, of course, but nothing abnormal did today.
Screencap of the livestream of April 2, 2018 SpaceX Falcon 9 launch. Image Credit: Alexandra Ossola
The Dragon is en route to deliver food, gear, and other supplies to the ISS, according to Space.com. It also contains materials for 50 science experiments conducted there, one fifth of the total experiments on board (more info about research on board the ISS can be found here). According to the Kennedy Space Center website and Space.com, those include:
  • An Earth observatory that will study thunderstorms and how they affect Earth’s atmosphere and climate. 
  • An investigation about how to best make products from metal powders in low gravity in order to improve manufacturing techniques. 
  • Experiments on how to best give plants the proper nutrients as part of continued studies to grow food in space.
  • Studies that analyze how fruit flies and wasps interact in microgravity
  • A study that assesses how space affects bone marrow, blood production, and wound healing
It’s not necessarily as exciting as, say, launching a cherry red sports car into the ether. But it’s still pretty dope.
If everything continues to go according to plan, the Dragon will get within docking range of the ISS around 7 AM ET on Wednesday, April 4, at which point “ISS crew members will use the station’s 57.7-foot (17.6- meter) robotic arm to reach out and capture the Dragon spacecraft and attach it to the orbiting laboratory,” notes a SpaceX press release. And you thought those claw machine games were stressful.
Dragon will be back again. After a month-long stint at the ISS, it’s slated to return to Earth, where, if its descent goes well, it will plop right into the Pacific near Baja California

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Advanced Transport Virgin Hyperloop One’s System JusElon Musk’s Speed Reco   SpaceX IN BRIEF In a recent test, Virgin Hyperloop One's system beat all previous speed records, hitting nearly 387 kilometers per hour (240 miles per hour). With Richard Branson now in their corner, the company could dominate the future of hyperloop transportation. HYPERLOOP SPEED RECORD On December 18,  Virgin Hyperloop One announced the completion of third phase testing on the  DevLoop , the world’s first full-scale hyperloop test site. During these tests, the system clocked a lightning-fast speed of nearly 387 kmh (240 mph), breaking the 355 kmh (220 mph) hyperloop speed record set by  Elon Musk’s hyperloop  in August. Click to View Full Infographic During this phase of testing, the company experimented with using a new airlock that helps test pods transition between atmospheric and vacuum conditions. By combining magnetic levitation, extremely ...
Post a Comment
Read more

A Web Company Is Offering to Pay Their Employees’ Salaries in Bitcoin

Future Society A Web Company Is Offering to Pay Their Employees’ Salaries in Bitcoin   Pixabay IN BRIEF A Japanese web hosting company will begin offering their employees the option of receiving part of their salaries in the form of bitcoin. Starting in February, workers can opt to receive between 1,000 yen ($88) and 100,000 yen ($890) of their paychecks in the popular cryptocurrency. BITCOIN AT WORK GMO Internet , a Japanese web hosting company, has  just offered  to pay a portion of their employees’ salaries in bitcoin. The shift is entirely optional, and the company is offering a range of entry points into the initiative. Starting in February, some workers will have the option of receiving as little as 10,000 yen (around $88) or as much as 100,000 yen (around $890) of their salaries in bitcoin. The offer will eventually expand to all of the company’s more than 4,000 employees. Image credit: Antana/Flickr In May, GMO I...
Post a Comment
Read more

MIT Engineers Develop Glowing Plants Using Nanoparticles

MIT Engineers Develop Glowing Plants Using Nanoparticles   MIT/YouTube IN BRIEF The project is part of a new research sector: plant nanobionics, which uses nanoparticles to give plants unique and naturally un-plantlike features and abilities. GLOWING PLANTS What if, as the sun went down, the unassuming plants in your windowsill began to glow, lighting up the space around them like tiny botanical lamps? Thanks to recent  innovations by engineers at MIT , these living lamps could soon become a reality. The team of researchers embedded specially designed nanoparticles into the leaves of a watercress plant, lead by Michael Strano, the Carbon P. Dubbs Professor of Chemical Engineering at MIT, and MIT postdoc Seon-Yeong Kwak — senior and lead authors on the study, respectively. The introduction of the nanoparticles caused the plants to give off a dim light, glowing for almost four full hours. While this might seem like a relatively minor ac...
Post a Comment
Read more