Gizmo Lovers Blog » NASA TV

ISS Astronauts Enter The Dragon

MegaZone — Tue, 29 May 2012 08:21:15 +0000

After the successful berthing on Friday, the ISS astronauts entered the SpaceX Dragon capsule for the first time on Saturday. They seemed to like what they saw, remarking that they would be willing to ride to the ISS in a human-rated Dragon in the future and commenting on its roominess when compared to the Russian Soyuz capsule crews use today. The Soyuz was originally a two person capsule, later updated for three in the same volume, while the Dragon is designed to carry seven crew – so it is no surprise that it is quite a bit roomier.

NASA TV shared videos of the opening and initial entry, as well as a Q&A event with the astronauts inside the Dragon:

Congratulations SpaceX! May 25, 2012, 12:02 EDT – Remember That Date

MegaZone — Fri, 25 May 2012 22:24:27 +0000

See that image? That’s a NASA TV image of the SpaceX Dragon capsule successfully berthed at the International Space Station (ISS), which occurred at 12:02 EDT today. The history books may well mark this as the moment the commercial space industry became ‘real’, as this is the first commercial vehicle to arrive at the ISS and it marks the start of commercial supply flights. This is truly a massive achievement by SpaceX, and they deserve all of the kudos they receive.

Note that I said berthing and not docking – they’re different. The Space Shuttle docked with the ISS. The Soyuz, Progress, and ATV (European Automated Transfer Vehicle) dock with the ISS. The HTV (Japanese H-II Transfer Vehicle) and Dragon berth. Docking is done under the craft’s own power and control. The craft flies toward a docking port on the ISS and moves into contact on its own. Berthing is handled by the station’s remote arm. The craft flies in toward the port, but stops about ten meters away and flies in formation with the ISS. The station’s arm reaches out and grapples the craft, and then draws it in to meet the docking, or berthing in this case, port.

Berthing is simpler than docking, but that’s all relative – neither is particularly simple. But berthing does require less from the approaching craft, and it is easier to get certified for berthing than for docking. The Dragon may dock on its own in the future, but it will evolve there. Certainly the plans to fly to Bigelow Aerospace’s planned private space station call for docking, as the station will not have an arm like the ISS. But docking is ‘good enough’ for the current mission, and autonomous docking is something that can be added to Dragon later.

NASA TV has a video of the approach, grapple, and berthing:

For some reason they slightly edited the version posted to YouTube and cut out the CapCom from the ISS including the “got a Dragon by the tail” like, which I thought was the best line in the video.

NASA Administrator Charles Bolden called the ISS to congratulate them on the successful berthing:

There was a post-berthing briefing as well, which covers a bit of what comes next:

Yesterday, as part of the tests to gain clearance for the berthing, Dragon flew below the ISS. This video shows the fly-under:

There was also a briefing last night for the truly interested:

Rockets, Rockets, Rockets – SpaceX Falcon 9 Launch To ISS 04:55ET This Morning!

MegaZone — Sat, 19 May 2012 08:11:29 +0000

There’s been some rocket-related activity while I was quiet. NASA continues the test program on the J-2X as part of the work for the planned Space Launch System (SLS). On Wednesday they had another brief test firing at Stennis Space Center:

Also related to the SLS, the last of the 15 remaining RS-25D flight engines, formerly known as the Space Shuttle Main Engine (SSME), has been delivered to storage at Stennis. The plan is to use up the existing RS-25D engines on the expendable core stage of the new SLS before switching over to new-build, cheaper RS-25E engines designed to be expendable. The RS-25D has a number of features required in their role as reusable engines on the space shuttle which just aren’t necessary for an expendable engine. But the existing engines still have life left, so they’ll go out in a blaze of glory on one last mission on the SLS.

In more immediate news, the SpaceX COTS 2+ Mission, aka Falcon 9 Flight 3, which has been rescheduled a few times is now set to launch this morning, Saturday, May 19, at 04:55ET. This will be the first launch of a commercial spacecraft, the Dragon capsule, to the International Space Station. A truly historic event – and they have a live webcast on YouTube! It is set to start at 04:15ET – you can join now, there is a timer counting down to the start of the webcast:

You can also watch on NASA TV:

Live video for mobile from Ustream

And for something different, the recent Lyrid meteor shower as filmed from the ISS: