Hasta La Gadget!

The CEO of both Tesla and SpaceX, Elon Musk, took the stage yesterday at SXSW to discuss several things, including a couple of new projects SpaceX is working on. SpaceX is currently working on building rockets that are reusable. The rockets are what Musk says is one of the roadblocks that is holding back humanity from the future of space travel. The cost of making the one-time use rockets is what’s stopping many businesses from joining the industry.

Musk says that fuel and oxygen are hardly the biggest costs of space travel. They only amount to 0.9% of the total cost of the rocket. If SpaceX is able to create a reusable rocket, they would be able to provide a “massive hundred-fold derease in the cost of space flight.” Musk says that SpaceX’s goal has been to expand humanity beyond Earth and turn it into a “multi-planetary species.” He continues to say that all other forms of transportation that humans use are reusable, so why not rockets?

The idea of SpaceX came to Musk when he was trying to donate money to NASA. He wanted NASA to start a greenhouse on Mars that would show that life could exist on that planet. Musk hoped that the project would increase NASA’s federal budget. He had this idea where there’d be a greenhouse on Mars with “green plants on red background”, which would be the “money shot”. The project fell through, but because of it, SpaceX was born.

SpaceX is now very successful, with 1/4 of its launches being for NASA, and the other 3/4 being for commercial businesses. Musk says that the main goals of SpaceX was to get people “excited, and sending (things) to Mars, and increasing NASA’s budget. Today NASA’s our biggest customer.” SpaceX is also working on building a commercial space port in Brownsville Texas, making it the third launch site for the company. There are just some legislative barriers the company has to go through before it can begin working on the project.

[via VentureBeat]

Elon Musk says SpaceX is working on reusable rockets is written by Brian Sin & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

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

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Via: The Verge

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

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.

You’ve no doubt seen plenty of video of SpaceX rocket launches on this very site, but let’s face it, nothing compares to seeing a live launch. Great news for fans of watching things slip the surly bonds of Earth: the commercial space company’s Dragon capsule is set to do precisely that atop a Falcon 9 carrier rocket at 10:10AM ET this very morning — you know, roughly half an hour from now. The unmanned rocket will deliver supplies to astronauts aboard the International Space Station. And if you’re not currently within driving distance of Cape Canaveral and in possession of the the proper clearances, you’re still in luck. You can watch a livestream of the event unfold in the source link below. And for more space action, make sure to check out the latest episode of the Engadget Show.

Update: We have liftoff!

Update 2: While the rocket liftoff seems to have gone according to plan, the company has reported a problem with the capsule. According to a tweet from Elon Musk, there’s an “issue with Dragon thruster pods. System inhibiting three of four from initializing. About to command inhibit override.”

Update 3: Miss this morning’s festivities? No worries, just hop the break to find an embedded video of the launch.

Filed under: Science

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Via: The Next Web, Space

Source: Livestream.com