At the end of the two-month launch drought, a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket propelled a Dragon cargo ship into orbit on Sunday early in the company’s 23rd supply to the International Space Station, carrying 4,300 pounds of equipment, scientific equipment , food and other supplies.
Yielding 24 hours late due to the stormy weather, the countdown went smoothly to zero and the nine Merlin engines of the first stage of the Falcon ignited in scheduled time at 3:14 a.m. EDT, driving the rocket away from block 39A to the Kennedy Space Center at 1.7 million pounds of thrust.
William Harwood / CBS News
The first stage, which made its fourth flight, took the vehicle out of the thick lower atmosphere and then fell, moving on to the second stage of the rocket to continue the climb into space.
A few seconds after the separation, the first stage turned around, restarted three engines to reverse, plunged back into the low atmosphere, and landed SpaceX’s new drone, “A Shortfall of Gravitas,” the the company’s third landing platform. The touchdown meant the recovery of booster 90 for SpaceX, its 67th place at sea.
For its first reinforcement recovery, the new barge was towed to the point of contact. But the ship is designed to make future recoveries on its own.
“It was designed and built to travel to the sea, find its position, receive the rocket and then secure the rocket to the ship, all robotically … and then travel back to port so that it can be unloaded completely autonomously,” he said. to say. Sarah Walker, SpaceX’s Dragon Mission Director.
“We are in the final stages of testing all this capacity,” he said. “I’m very excited to see this vehicle online. We really need it.”
About a minute after landing the first stage, the second stage of the Falcon 9 completed the ascent to a preliminary orbit and released the cargo ship Dragon to fly on its own 11 minutes and 45 seconds after takeoff.
The capsule was launched directly into the orbit plane of the space station and, if all goes well, the spacecraft will catch up with its quarry around 11 a.m. Sunday, gliding toward an automated docking. in the forward port of the laboratory.
The Dragon contains 2,305 pounds of scientific equipment, nearly 1,000 pounds of equipment and spare parts needed and 1,058 pounds of crew supplies, including “a pretty good amount of fresh fruit,” said Joel Montalbano, the program’s manager. space station at the Johnson Space Center in Houston.
NASA / SpaceX webcast
“We have lemons, onions, some avocado, some cherry tomatoes,” he said. “We also want an ice cream. That’s a big hit for our crew members.”
Scientific research being delivered at the station includes experiments to study therapies to mitigate bone deterioration in weightlessness; a device for studying visual problems caused by prolonged exposure to microgravity; experimental robot arm technology; and research to study the long-term effects of the space environment on a variety of building materials.
And to try to foster interest in science among young women, there are three Girl Scout experiments.
One will assess how ants tunnel in weightlessness, another will study how tomatoes, peppers and lemon grass grow in space, while the third will study whether brine shrimp can be raised in microgravity in order to serve as a source of protein for future long-term astronauts. duration flights.
The dragon is expected to remain attached to the station until the end of September. By then, the new supplies and equipment will have been unloaded and the ship will be repackaged with experiments and other materials that will be returned to Earth, including images of a high-resolution 3D camera system that will be shot during the 12 scheduled for September. space walk.
NASA astronaut Mark Vande Hei and Japanese crewmate Akihiko Hoshide had planned to take the spacewalk this past Monday, but the excursion was suspended when Vande Hei developed a nerve.
The spacewalk has been rescheduled for September 12 and French astronaut Thomas Pesquet takes Vande Hei’s place. This will ensure that the 3D camera images of the output can be returned to Earth aboard the cargo dragon in late September. Photography is part of a commercial project to capture immersive scenes of life in orbit.