Last SpaceX mission has some of the best video yet.

The broadcast of the recent CRS-13 mission provided some of the best mission video I've seen.  Clear, daytime launch yielded some spectacular video of the launch and landing of the Falcon 9 first stage.
You can watch the replay here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OPHbqY9LHCs

Here is a quick reference of where some of the highlights occur, for those of you in a hurry.

16:50 - Close shot of the Falcon 9 rocket
18:30 - Stage separation - An external shot, not the typical shot from inside the second stage
Followed by the boost back burn (the camera following the first stage).
19:10 - The protective nose cover jettisoned from Dragon shoots past
21:10 - Cape Canaveral comes into view from the first stage camera
The next 30 seconds show the reentry with one very short video drop
23:15 - First stage landing burn starts, detail of the landing zone becomes clear
26:00 - Dragon separates.  Great video of Dragon heading away from the second stage, detail of dragon’s trunk with the earth filling the upper portion of the frame
26:40 - Dragon still visible with good detail

Additionally a great, almost continuous, external landing video was produced.  It can be seen here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z6RPfXSRww4

Fall 2017 - a busy and exciting time for SpaceX

Sprinkled into the SpaceX launch manifest for this fall, and the first quarter of 2018, are two big milestones: the Falcon Heavy and Crew Dragon demos.

Also this month, SpaceX will once again have two back to back missing with the
SES 11/EchoStar 105 mission launching from Kennedy Space Center on the 7th, and the Iridium Next 21-30 mission launching from Vandenberg Air Force Base on the 9th.

Falcon 9 -SES 11/EchoStar 105
October 7, 2017 at 6:53 PM. EDT (2 hour window)
LC-39A, Kennedy Space Center, Florida

Falcon 9 - Iridium Next 21-30
October 9th, 2017 at 8:37 AM EDT (5:37 AM PDT)
SLC-4E, Vandenberg Air Force Base, California

SpaceX has 58 missions listed on its launch manifest. Of these 58, the following - which include 3 Falcon Heavy flights and the Crew Dragon Demo - have been announced:
Falcon 9 - Koreasat 5A
October 30, 2017 at 3:34 PM. EDT (window extends to 5:58 PM)
Cape Canaveral, Florida

Falcon 9 - Hispasat 30W-6
4th Quarter 2017
Cape Canaveral, Florida

Falcon Heavy Demo Flight
November 2017
LC-39A, Kennedy Space Center, Florida

Falcon 9 - Iridium Next 31-40
Late November 2017
SLC-4E, Vandenberg Air Force Base, California

Falcon 9 - SpaceX CRS 13
November 28 (launch time TBD)
Cape Canaveral, Florida

Falcon 9 - Bangabandhu 1
December 2017
Cape Canaveral, Florida

Falcon 9 - SES 16/GovSat 1
Late December 2017
Cape Canaveral, Florida

Falcon 9 - Iridium Next 41-50
January 2018
SLC-4E, Vandenberg Air Force Base, California

Falcon 9 - SpaceX CRS 14
February 9 (launch time TBD)
Cape Canaveral, Florida

Falcon Heavy - Arabsat 6A
Early 2018
LC-39A, Kennedy Space Center, Florida

Falcon 9 - TESS
Sometime after March 20, 2018
Launch site: SLC-40, Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, Florida

Falcon 9 - Crew Dragon Demo 1
April, 2018
LC-39A, Kennedy Space Center, Florida

Falcon Heavy - STP-2
Sometime after April 30, 2018
LC-39A, Kennedy Space Center, Florida

Big week for commercial space

Orbital's Cygnus space craft will be released for the ISS following its successful resupply mission. SpaceX and Blue Origin have launched scheduled. SpaceX is scheduled to launch the EUTELSAT/ABS mission today at 10:29am ET. Blue Origin has announced plans for another launch of its New Shepard vehicle on Friday -- which is a break from the previous launches, which were only announced after they took place.

UPDATED: Space Station supply mission today as SpaceX resumes its CRS schedule.

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

SpaceX CRS-7 launch scheduled for Sunday, June 28th

SpaceX's seventh International Space Station (ISS) cargo resupply mission is scheduled for launch on Sunday, June 28th at 10:21 AM Eastern Time.

Live coverage of the event starts at 10:00 AM (Eastern Time) on the SpaceX Lifestream channel.
While the primary mission of all cargo resupply missions is to get cargo safely to and from the ISS, which is the only true measure of success, most people following SpaceX's reusable rocket goal will be even more interested in the secondary mission goal of attempting to land the Falcon 9 rocket.  This will be the latest in a series of attempts - with each attempt providing data for the next, and getting closer and closer to the goal.  This "must read" article on the SpaceX side provides the details along with some great images and video.

Next up for SpaceX - Pad Abort Test for Dragon, Tomorrow (May 6th) [Updated]

Update: May 6th. The Pad Test was successfully executed this morning.  The video from the Lifestream broadcast is below.

Before getting into the subject of this post, I'd like to acknowledge that this blog has become very SpaceX centered. That wasn't the intent - and still isn't - but it seems that SpaceX news fills the limited amount of time I have to devote to blogging. And they are doing such innovative and imaginative work that deserves to be shared. I do follow other commercial space companies, as well as NASA and other space agencies, but its likely that something extraordinary would have to occur with them in order to be shared here at this point.

On with the post.

With the Thales (TürkmenÄlem) mission complete, and the next launch scheduled for June, SpaceX will squeeze in the first test of the escape system for the human rated Dragon, now dubbed "Crew Dragon" in SpaceX's news release.

Pad Abort Test Infographic [click image to see a larger version]

This first test is the Pad Abort Test, which tests the spacecraft's emergency crew escape capability for an emergency that may occur while the rocket is still on the launch pad. An upcoming second test will test the escape capability from an in-flight rocket.

While these tests may not seem as exciting as full launch - especially one that attempts to drop the Falcon rocket onto a small floating landing pad - it is actually a very difficult process with some very impressive metrics. For example, Dragon's eight SuperDraco engines will produce 120,000 pounds of thrust to propel the spacecraft 328 ft (almost 100 meters) in 2 seconds, and 1/3 mile (more than half a kilometer) in just over 5 seconds.
To put that into perspective, that's just about the same as the national record for the 1/4 mile (drag race), which is currently 3.701 seconds. One hell of a ride for sure!

Another point of interest is that SpaceX is attempting to improve on the traditional, familiar escape "tower" that was stuck to the nose of spacecraft from almost the beginning of the U.S. space program. This tower contained a cluster of rockets that would effectively pull the spacecraft off of - and away from - the rocket. While this was effective when the rocket was on the pad, and for the first part of the ascent, it becomes ineffective within a couple of minutes. The built in SuperDraco thrusters on the other hand remain operational, and are maintained throughout the flight. These are also the thrusters that will enable Dragon to "land propulsively on Earth or another planet with the precision of a helicopter".

Read the full news release for details.

Launch postponed until tomorrow (4/14)

The launch of the SpaceX NASA CRS-6 mission has been delayed due to a potentially hazardous weather-related launch condition (the anvil cloud rule for thunderstorm clouds).  The next launch window is tomorrow at 4:10 PM (eastern).  Watch live on the SpaceX Lifestream channel.

This launch will include the latest attempt at landing the Falcon 9 rocket's first stage, hopefully advancing the goal of a reusable rocket,  This capability has been called a game changer by Elon Musk, shattering not only the launch price, but also the interval between launches.
 
So far 2015 has been very busy, with three flights in as many months.  With as many as 12 more flights slated for this year - including tomorrow's CRS-6 - this year should see more than twice the number of launches as 2014 (six missions) - and may include the first Falcon Heavy demo flight.

Exciting times for this visionary, but still quite young, company.

Orbital Sciences completes the first launch of its Antares rocket

Orbital Sciences completed its first launch of the Antares rocket - as well as the first launch from its new facilities at the Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport at Wallops Island, VA.

The launch took place on April 21st at 5:00 PM local time (EDT).

This launch is the first step towards demonstrating Orbital's capability to resupply the International Space Station (ISS), for which it will use the company's Cygnus spacecraft.  Orbital Sciences is one of the two companies providing services under  NASA's Commercial Resupply Services (CRS) program, SpaceX being the other.

Once the Cygnus spacecraft has completed its demo missions, orbital will begin fulfilling its contract with NASA is for eight resupply missions, which are anticipated to start by the end of this year (2013).

Another first for SpaceX

As I wrote previously, SpaceX used the Dragon spacecraft's unpressurized "trunk" to carry additional large cargo pieces to the ISS this trip.  The unpressurized trunk section is separated from the main, pressurized, section and is not accessible via the docking hatch.  So the space station's robotic arm had to be used to unload the cargo from the "trunk".  This represents another SpaceX mission first, and clears the way for addition cargo in CRS-3 and CRS-4 later this year and early next year.  Both of these have cargo on the manifest that will fly in the unpressurized trunk.
A really good article about the robotic unloading (and the mission as a whole) is here on the nasaspaceflight.com site.

CRS-2 is in orbit after a successful launch.
Currently the SpaceX team is working a problem with the spacecraft's thrusters, which has delayed the deployment of the solar arrays.  SpaceX commanded them to reset, which brought them on-line, and they then commanded the solar arrays to deploy.  The solar arrays have been deployed and the spacecraft is on towards its rendezvous with the ISS tomorrow (Saturday).

Congratulations on another good launch!

SpaceX CRS-2 press kit and Livestream event page are on line.  Static fire has been completed and and everything appears to be good for the Friday morning launch.
SpaceX Press Kit
Livestream Event Page

SpaceX CRS-2 mission a "go" for this Friday.

NASA has the launch scheduled for 10:10 am EST on March 1st.  The mission will be launched from Cape Canaveral's Space Launch Complex 40 (the site of the previous SpaceX launches).

The mission will deliver around 1,200 pounds of supplies to the ISS and, more importantly (as pointed out in this post), return more than 2,300 pounds of equipment and experiment samples to Earth.

SpaceX Dragon Spacecraft being prepared for launch at Cape Canaveral.

The seemingly small 1,200 pound payload is due to the fact that, like the first resupply mission, the majority of the cargo will be flown in the pressurized capsule section.  However, unlike the first mission, the unpressurized trunk will be used for the first time.  The trunk will be used to send a pair of "heat rejection subsystem grapple fixtures" - presumably too large to fit into the pressurized capsule.  But accessing the trunk requires new procedures - which will be a big objective of this mission - because the trunk is not accessible via Dragon's docking hatch.  Accessing the trunk requires the ISS's robotic arms: the Special Purpose Dexterous Manipulator (SPDM also known as Dextre) and perhaps the the Space Station Remote Manipulator System (SSRMS also known as the Canadarm - and is the same arm that grabs the Dragon to pull it into the ISS dock).
These systems are routinely used for remote manipulation, and accessing the Dragon's trunk should be no problem for these systems, but it is a major milestone and key to unlocking the Dragon's full lift capability.

For further reading, the most comprehensive article I've found on CRS-2 (aka, SpX-2) here at NASASpaceflight.com.

SpaceX CRS-2 Mission is just weeks away.  Yes, its that time again.The launch of the second cargo resupply mission to the International Space Station (ISS) under SpaceX's CRS contract with NASA.  CRS-2 is scheduled for March 1st from Cape Canaveral.

On another note, SpaceX is still holding to their Falcon Heavy launch in 2013 forecast, and are still working on the new Merlin engine.  I found this article, which I though was a good backgrounder on some of the current work.  It has some videos from the early days of the company.  They're old but very good quality and still very informative.

Older Posts

This is my new blog, which will be dedicated to Space.  Primarily, Commercial Space and especially the news from commercial companies that are advancing human exploration and space tourism, such as SpaceX, Virgin Galactic, Blue Origin, Bigelow Aerospace and others.  My original posts were mixed into a blog that contained everything I blogged about, and an index to them is below.

12/18/2012 SpaceX winning more commercial space launch business. Busy year ahead.

11/20/2012 SpaceX Grasshopper takes another hop

10/30/2012 SpaceX Dragon is home, safe and sound

10/23/2012 SpaceX COTS Demo 2/3 mission launched May 22nd also a memorial to "Mr. Scott" and others

10/12/2012 SpaceX's Secondary Payload, the Orbcomm satellite falls from orbit

10/11/2012 SpaceX Dragon completes first leg of mission

10/08/2012 SpaceX Dragon on it way to ISS

10/06/2012 SpaceX: All systems are "Go"