Early this morning, the crew of the International Space Station reached out with its robotic arm and captured SpaceX’s Dragon module. The capture and eventual docking marks the first privately driven cargo delivery to the space station, something that could change the landscape of manned spaceflight.
The ramifications are potentially huge. If SpaceX can make these deliveries reliably, it frees NASA’s budget and brainpower to focus on other projects. Perhaps a high-capacity launch vehicle to send something like the Orion capsule beyond Low Earth Orbit? Of course, SpaceX still has some hurdles to clear in order to become that reliable. First and foremost, it’s got to figure out why one of its Falcon 9 engines failed during Sunday’s launch. Still, this is huge for SpaceX and for NASA. Further progress can get NASA out of the cargo and crew shuttling business and into more Final Frontier kind of exploration.
And we've got a little bit of space history made today. The Dragon Module, a crew and cargo capsule designed by Elon Musk's SpaceX program, has just docked with the International Space Station. This is the first docking the multinational station and a private space vehicle, marking a huge step…
Apart from a love of all things science fiction and geek culture, the staff here at Tosche Station has one thing in common: we're all space junkies. Tomorrow morning, Elon Musk and his SpaceX private company are prepared to launch the Dragon capsule aboard the Falcon 9 launch vehicle. io9…
At 3:44 AM EDT Elon Musk and SpaceX's Falcon 9 finally blasted off the launchpad today and began what may be a new era in spaceflight. For the SpaceX team, it had been a long and bumpy road to get to this point. Several setbacks pushed the launch date deep into…
