Hasta La Gadget!

SpaceX‘s second Dragon capsule to run a resupply mission to the International Space Station has been successfully captured by the orbiting platform’s robotic arm, despite launch issues that threatened to leave the cargo shuttle without solar power. Snatched from orbit an hour ahead of schedule, the next step for Dragon is being guided into place to dock with the ISS, at which point nearly a month of loading and unloading will occur.

Dragon didn’t go up into space empty-handed. Onboard the reusable craft there’s almost 1,300 pounds of cargo, including scientific experiments, new equipment, and supplies for the astronauts currently living on the space station. They’ll all be offloaded, and then Dragon packed up with a return load of equipment and spent supplies before beginning its journey back to Earth at the end of the month.

At one point, however, the whole mission looked to be on shaky ground. After a successful takeoff on Friday, shedding the first and second stage rockets, Dragon’s thruster pods did not react as they were meant to. That meant the all-important solar arrays could not be unfurled.

“Falcon 9 lifted off as planned and experienced a nominal flight” SpaceX told us in a statement. “After Dragon achieved orbit, the spacecraft experienced an issue with a propellant valve. ”

After some remote tinkering, all four of the pods were triggered and the craft could make its way to the ISS. Final approach began at 2am EST, with the actual grapple coming early at 5:31am EST.

SpaceX Dragon successfully reaches ISS is written by Chris Davies & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

Didn’t get enough of the Dragon capsule launch this week? Good news, because after a day’s delay due to (now remedied, according to NASA and SpaceX) faults with three clusters of its Draco thrusters, the capsule is set to be grappled by the International Space Station at 6:31AM ET on March 3rd (tomorrow morning). If you’ll recall, the mission is mainly aimed at getting refreshed supplies and some experiments up to the space station. As an aside, NASA also notes that Dragon is still set to arrive back on earth for a splashdown on the 25th, as initially planned. If you’re up for it, NASA TV coverage starts at 3:30AM the same day and the final berthing process (actually getting the capsule connected to the ISS) should happen after 8AM — all that said, initial “orbital maneuvers” are set for 2AM, according to a tweet from Elon Musk. For more details on this stage of the mission, including those involved, blast over to the NASA source link below — and make sure you’ve got enough coffee ready.

Filed under: Misc, Science, Alt

Comments

Via: The Verge

Source: NASA, SpaceX (Twitter), Elon Musk (Twitter)

NASA’s Curiosity rover has mostly had smooth sailing since it touched down on Mars last year. Unfortunately, it’s in a more precarious position as of this past Thursday. After noticing corrupted memory files on the robot’s primary computer, overseers have kicked Curiosity into a “safe mode” with a backup computer while they determine what’s wrong and deliver any viable fixes. Don’t think of this like you would the Safe Mode on a Windows PC, though. While the backup can serve as a replacement for the main computer, project manager Richard Cook warns Space.com that it will likely take “several days” to supply enough information that the failsafe can take over. NASA will switch back to the main computer if and when it’s ready; if it is, the agency hopes to harden the code against future flaws. Curiosity will effectively stay on ice in the meantime… and not the variety it might want to find.

Filed under: Robots, Science, Alt

Comments

Source: Space.com

NASA’s got all kinds of cred when it comes to space, but the very depths of our own planet’s oceans aren’t that much different. So who better to take a deep dive and drudge up the first images of the watery world beneath Antarctica’s ancient glaciers? More »

SpaceX and NASA’s second Dragon resupply mission to the International Space Station successfully blasted off on its way into space, but encountered unexplained issues roughly twelve minutes into launch. Taking off at 10:10AM EST today to take new equipment and supplies to the orbiting astronauts, the Dragon capsule, climbing at 1km per second atop a cluster of nine rockets, is carrying around 1,268 pounds of cargo and had been expected to dock with the ISS on Saturday, March 2. Update: More on the launch issues after the cut.

There, Expedition 34 commander Kevin Ford and Flight Engineer Tom Marshburn of NASA had been expecting to snatch it from the sky with the station’s robotic arm. The exact issues around the problem are unclear at this point.

After 3:14, the first stage rockets detached – you can see the assembly dropping away in the left half of the image below – leaving the second stage rockets to push the capsule further out of the atmosphere. At 9:30 after launch, Dragon had reached orbit, with the capsule detaching from the second stage around 45s later.

However, a few minutes after that point, the launch veered from the original plan. The video stream switched from Dragon back to the second stage, and then SpaceX cut the webcast, with a spokesperson saying that an unexpected problem had affected the capsule and that the team would be working on figuring out what was happening.

As well as food and other essentials for the ISS crew, the Dragon capsule is packed with scientific experiments, including both biological and physics tests. On the biology side, there’ll be experiments to see how plant cells react in low-oxygen environments, as well as in microgravity, which NASA says will be instrumental in developing potential food sources for longer trips, such as to Mars.

On the physics side, there’ll be tests to see how molten metals solidify in microgravity, which could potentially open the door to new types of materials. Procter & Gamble is also funding some research, into how microscopic particles clump and gather in liquids and gels.

SpaceX and NASA will hold a press conference in several hours time to discuss the issues Dragon is facing.

Update: We’re hearing that the problem is that the solar panels on the Dragon capsule did not unfurl as expected, though we’re yet to see official confirmation on that from either NASA or SpaceX.

Update 2: SpaceX’s Elon Musk has tweeted that there is an “Issue with Dragon thruster pods. System inhibiting three of four from initializing. About to command inhibit override.”

Update 3: SpaceX has given us the following statement:

“One thruster pod is running. Two are preferred to take the next step which is to deploy the solar arrays.  We are working to bring up the other two in order to plan the next series of burns to get to station.”

SpaceX 2 Dragon struck by problems after reaching orbit is written by Chris Davies & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.