Tag Archives: SpaceX

TSR #184: State of the Superhero

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This week on TSR: podcasting on a boat, SpaceX has a BIG rocket, that’s a lot of Star Wars books, and the State of the Superhero. All that and more on this episode of TSR! 

TSR is the official podcast of Tosche-Station.net. If you like what you hear, subscribe and leave a review on iTunes and Google Play. For more great shows from us, you can also subscribe to the Tosche Station Network mega feed on iTunes and Google Play. We can also be found on Facebook and Twitter.

Nanci is the founder of Tosche-Station.net. You can find her on Twitter with the handle @Nancipants.

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International Space Station Captures Dragon Capsule

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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.

International Space Station Catches A Dragon By The Tail

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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 forward for low-Earth orbit space travel.

Falcon 9 and Dragon Module Lift Off

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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 May. At the last possible moment on a launch attempt last Saturday morning, the sequence was aborted when a pressure discrepancy was spotted by the computer in the number five Merlin 1C engine.

Today, however, things went off without a hitch.

After the launch and separation, NASA and the SpaceX crew watched as the Dragon supply and crew module successfully separated from the Falcon 9 rocket and deployed its solar array, another enormous milestone for the program.

Today kicks off a roughly two-week mission for the Dragon module that, if all goes well, will lead to the first docking between the International Space Station and a private space vessel. In the macro view, a successful Falcon 9 and Dragon program means that NASA has a much more affordable crew and cargo transport vehicle that frees them from dependency on the Russian Soyuz. Success could even mean that NASA has the freedom to work on something even greater, perhaps a heavy launch vehicle that can deliver crew and cargo beyond low Earth orbit.

Falcon 9 Launch Scrubbed, Rescheduled for Tomorrow

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Saturday’s attempted launch of SpaceX’s Falcon 9 launch vehicle and Dragon capsule looked like it was going to go off without a hitch. Until one second remained in the countdown.

Engineers have spent the last few days looking over the number five Merlin 1C engine and have determined the Falcon 9 can be cleared for another launch attempt tomorrow morning, only a few days after the latest scrub.

With any luck, at 3:44AM EDT the mission can resume and we’ll find out if we’re one big step closer towards a new crew transport vehicle.

SpaceX Set For Saturday Launch

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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 has prepared a day-by-day breakdown of the mission. Should everything proceed as planned, the unmanned Dragon capsule will embark on an two-week mission that will include a stop at the International Space Station for a supply dropoff.

Elon Musk and the Falcon 9 Merlin-1C engines

The launch will be only the third flight of the Falcon 9 launch vehicle, a craft NASA is pinning a great deal of hopes on. If the vehicle proves to be a capable cargo and crew launcher, it will free up NASA to focus their efforts perhaps on a heavy launch vehicle that can deliver payload beyond the confines of low-Earth orbit.

A successful mission will be an extraordinary boon for the space agency. If NASA can get out of the business of being a space taxi to the International Space Station, they might be able to do something interesting with their criminally underfunded budget.