History making: Space X to be 1st commercial company to visit ISS, see launch live 5/19/12 early AM

If this wasn't so early on a Saturday morning I would go out and attempt to view this. It should be quite clear even on the west coast of Florida to perhaps see the launch. If you're in Florida, are an early bird, then by all means have at it and get some video if you can and are so inclined.

For those not in the area the launch will be webcast at the time shown in the picture.

Space X is launching the Dragon

Dragon is a free-flying, reusable spacecraft being developed by SpaceX under NASA's Commercial Orbital Transportation Services (COTS) program. Initiated internally by SpaceX in 2005, the Dragon spacecraft is made up of a pressurized capsule and unpressurized trunk used for Earth to LEO transport of pressurized cargo, unpressurized cargo, and/or crew members.

The Dragon spacecraft is comprised of 3 main elements: the Nosecone, which protects the vessel and the docking adaptor during ascent; the Spacecraft, which houses the crew and/or pressurized cargo as well as the service section containing avionics, the RCS system, parachutes, and other support infrastructure; and the Trunk, which provides for the stowage of unpressurized cargo and will support Dragon’s solar arrays and thermal radiators.

In December 2008, NASA announced the selection of SpaceX’s Falcon 9 launch vehicle and Dragon spacecraft to resupply the International Space Station (ISS) when the Space Shuttle retires. The $1.6 billion contract represents a minimum of 12 flights, with an option to order additional missions for a cumulative total contract value of up to $3.1 billion.

Though designed to address cargo and crew requirements for the ISS, as a free-flying spacecraft Dragon also provides an excellent platform for in-space technology demonstrations and scientific instrument testing. SpaceX is currently manifesting fully commercial, non-ISS Dragon flights under the name “DragonLab”. DragonLab represents an emergent capability for in-space experimentation.

From the Home Page of the Space X website

On Saturday, May 19th, SpaceX will become the first commercial company in history to attempt to visit the International Space Station. Watch the action live on SpaceX.com beginning at 1:15 AM Pacific / 4:15 AM Eastern / 08:15 UTC.

For more information on the upcoming demonstration mission, check out the info in our press kit (pdf).

For those on Twitter, be sure to follow @elonmusk this week. He will be tweeting live from mission control during launch.

Here's one of the latest tweets:

Next time Dragon sees the sun, it should be doing 17,000 mph over the Atlantic. ~8 hrs to liftoff.

It really is something to see space commercialized, in my own view there are pros and cons, but that discussion is for another time.

Enjoy!

I've just noticed on the Space X site that the launch has been delayed by 40minutes.

Roughly 6 hours to go.

Perhaps some of the Pacific time zone ATS members will still be up to catch the webcast, it is a Friday night and all.

reply to post by UberL33t


This will be interesting to follow. Thanks for the heads up!

Hope it all goes well.

Oh crap... I was about to hit the sack. Now must watch... must...keep,,, eyes,,, open.

thanks for the heads-up.

About 30 minutes to go!

I hope all goes well and smooth and safe!


The best feed I'm getting at the moment is coming from this NASA link.
Watch NASA's feed of Space X Dragon Launch

Damn, looks like launch was a no go...

reply to post by Qumulys


Mission scrubbed with 10 seconds to go.
GRRRR!!

Waited up for this rubbish!
Should have known better.

Next window on the 22nd.

They start ignition, then stop it and abort.
so lame. Soo glad I stayed up for this. lol!

"we only had a one second window" BS


Thanks though OP, It is appreciated.

i was watching

they scrubbed it AFTER the ten second countdown they reached ignition stage after the 1 then suddenly turned ignition back off,

was as last second as it gets.

dissapointing.

reply to post by Ahmose


Surely lame for us. Maybe even more for them. But it was the safe thing to do. As i understood a parameter was out of bounds in one of the 9 engines.

reply to post by ReleaseThePressure


Yeah, I understand that..
But how are these things not checked and triple checked before hand? I mean wtf?

"SpaceX-The future of space travel"..

Goddess I hope not! lol

reply to post by Ahmose


I'm not sure if they did. But even if, anything can happen. Maybe it was a very slight discrepancy. But chances are best not taken in these situations.

ETA: cool sig

reply to post by ReleaseThePressure


Yeah, its safety first and foremost with these 'controlled' explosions. I heard them say a computer shut it down because of a discrepancy. I bet it was a Google Adsense pop-up, those bloody things are everywhere.

reply to post by Qumulys


LOL good one!

According to a tweet from the CEO there was a slightly high combustion chamber pressure on engine 5. They will be adjusting the limits for countdown in a few days.

Originally posted by ReleaseThePressure
reply to post by Ahmose

 

I'm not sure if they did. But even if, anything can happen. Maybe it was a very slight discrepancy. But chances are best not taken in these situations.

ETA: cool sig

edit on 19-5-2012 by ReleaseThePressure because: (no reason given)

haha, Thanks!

I just wish these bs primitive rockets would stop being used.
many of us know that they are long obsolete and that we have far better technology available..
We're just not allowed to know about it.....
(Hey, This is ATS, right?) lol

reply to post by Ahmose


Someone mentioned something along these lines in my thread about this. He also mentioned some type of triangle aircraft he witnessed.

And ofcourse, what would an ATS thread be without atleast a smidge of conspiracy?

seems the launch is a fail

Aww I was hoping to wake up to a better outcome, ehh maybe next time. Man I miss the shuttle

Originally posted by UberL33t
Aww

I was hoping to wake up to a better outcome, ehh maybe next time. Man I miss the shuttle

To be fair, the shuttle did this as well from time to time. RSLS abort.

In this first one you can hear a bit of panic in the pilot's voice "Break break, break break, DLS shows engine one not shut down."
The problem didn't end there, though the engine was shut down; an invisible hydrogen fire was actually starting on the pad. Normally they would evacuate the shuttle and take the baskets off the pad in an emergency situation like that, but since they hadn't been adequately tested they weren't comfortable using them. Good thing too; it was later discovered that the astronauts would have gone right through the fire had they gone to the baskets, most likely killing them. Instead they evacuated through the normal route and were doused with water on their way out.
collectspace.com...
Yes, that's Judy Resnik in the photo; though she escaped this dangerous scenario, she would later be killed on Challenger.

Here's a more "normal" example of a redundant set launch sequencer abort:

The failure to launch was mentioned on TV.
They also mentioned there were nine engines on the rocket.
More engines mean more chances to fail.
That was the Russian Moon mission rocket flaw too many engines.