UPDATE: SpaceX has stuck the landing! This is first successful Falcon 9 landing at sea, and was shown in real time on the live broadcast. Congratulations!
SpaceX is sending Dragon to the ISS as it resumes its schedule of resupply missions. The CRS-8 mission will launch shortly - 4:43 PM EDT (Apr 8, 2016). As usual for CRS missions, the launch will be from Space Launch Complex 40 at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station.
Once again, the Falcon 9 will attempt to land on the droneship “Of Course I Still Love You” (in the Atlantic Ocean). These landings are always experimental and secondary to the main mission, but still highly anticipated. A landing has yet to be made to a droneship, but a successful landing to the Cape Canaveral landing site was accomplished (and was fantastic to watch!), so a success at sea is not at all out of the realm of possibility. SpaceX has been getting closer and closer.
As a reminder to those familiar with the Dragon resupply missions (or for those of you that haven't previously followed these missions), SpaceX is the only space station resupply vendor that is able to return relatively large amounts of cargo back from the ISS. Other CRS missions send cargo to the ISS, but since the retirement of the space shuttle there has been a void in the capability to return significant amounts of cargo.
Live feed (and replay) at http://www.spacex.com/webcast
Press kit is at http://www.spacex.com/press/2016/04/07/press-kit-crs-8-dragon-mission
No comments:
Post a Comment