SpaceX Falcon 9 Launch Success (Updated)
SpaceX Falcon 9 on Historic Journey Begins with Successful Launch, SpaceRef (With video of launch)
“At 3:44 a.m. EDT a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket with the Dragon spacecraft successfully lifted off from the Cape Canaveral Air Force Space Station launch complex 40 for its maiden voyage to the International Space Station on its second demonstration flight as part of the NASA Commercial Orbital Transportation Services program.”
Statement by John P. Holdren, Assistant to the President for Science and Technology, on Launch of Falcon 9 Rocket and Dragon Spacecraft
Successful Launch Kicks off SpaceX’s Historic Mission, SpaceX
“At a press conference held after the launch, SpaceX CEO and Chief Designer Elon Musk began, “I would like to start off by saying what a tremendous honor it has been to work with NASA. And to acknowledge the fact that we could not have started SpaceX, nor could we have reached this point without the help of NASA… It’s really been an honor to work with such great people.”
The Commercial Spaceflight Federation Congratulates SpaceX and NASA on the Successful Launch and Orbital Insertion of the Dragon Capsule, Commercial Spaceflight Federation
“The Commercial Spaceflight Federation congratulates Space Exploration Technologies (SpaceX) and NASA for a successful launch and orbital insertion of the Dragon spacecraft this morning. Dragon was launched atop a Falcon 9 rocket that lifted off from Cape Canaveral, FL and will continue to perform maneuvers and system checks, while maintaining communications at a fly-under distance of 1.5 miles from the International Space Station as part of a demonstration mission under NASA’s Commercial Orbital Transportation Services (COTS) program.”
SpaceX Launches NASA Demonstration Mission to Space Station, NASA
“I want to congratulate SpaceX for its successful launch and salute the NASA team that worked alongside them to make it happen,” NASA Administrator Charles Bolden said. “Today marks the beginning of a new era in exploration; a private company has launched a spacecraft to the International Space Station that will attempt to dock there for the first time. And while there is a lot of work ahead to successfully complete this mission, we are certainly off to good start. Under President Obama’s leadership, the nation is embarking upon an ambitious exploration program that will take us farther into space than we have ever traveled before, while helping create good-paying jobs right here in the United States of America.”
Statement from Robert T. Bigelow of Biegelow Aerospace
“Three consecutive successful launches of the Falcon 9 rocket is an unprecedented accomplishment. Regardless of what happens during the remainder of the upcoming mission, the Falcon 9 has clearly arrived and proven itself as a reliable and affordable launch system for NASA, the Air Force, and commercial payloads. This rocket will create a paradigm shift within the global launch industry and I want to congratulate Elon Musk, Gwynne Shotwell and the entire SpaceX team on today’s success. This launch also represents a victory for the commercial crew program as a whole, and validates their approach of supporting multiple, competing entities. The challenges that the U.S. space industry faces are dire, and at least two domestic launch vehicles produced by independent companies are necessary to ensure that America regains its preeminence in the space arena.”
Successful SpaceX Launch Leads Way for Future ISS Opportunities CASIS
“The Center for the Advancement of Science in Space (CASIS), the nonprofit organization managing research on the International Space Station (ISS) U.S. National Laboratory, would like to congratulate SpaceX on the achieving a significant milestone today with the successful launch of the Falcon 9 rocket and Dragon capsule, both heading to the ISS to attempt a docking demonstration for NASA.”
NASA Administrator Bolden Comments on SpaceX Falcon 9 Launch
Congratulations to SpaceX. I am so pleased. There is light at the end of the tunnel now
Long way to go – but the paradigm is shifting.
Congratulations to SpaceX, NASA, and the American taxpayer.
We are all winners today.Respectfully,
Andrew Gasser
TEA Party in Space
Agreed; still lots of firsts to do on the Dragon and then still more during rendezvous and prox ops. Nonetheless, it’s a good start.
The American taxpayer needs to learn that they should expect value for their tax money. Elon tried to buy time on our government rockets and saw what a poor job our government does giving us value for our buck. Good luck with your fight Mr. Gasser. Use ELONS effort all you can to convince them all we should demmand better!
Joe Q Taxpayer
Get rid of dam ear marks!!!!!!!!
We are in DC for a few weeks – we will try to bend a few ears. Friday is HUGE.
Respectfully,
Andrew Gasser
TEA Party in Space
“This expanded role for the private sector will free up more of NASA’s resources to do what NASA does best — tackle the most demanding technological challenges in space, including those of human space flight beyond low Earth orbit.”
That could mean for NASA to do it’s NACA R and D role but seems to want to keep Leo and BEO separate so that our space program can keep wasting money on SLS and Orion pretending that still building a gaint, old fashion, unaffordable rocket some how boot straps our space future. How political and disappointing. 🙁
The Administration would like to be rid of these albatrosses, unfortunately the “budget hawks” in the Senate and House are forcing NASA to keep pouring billions of taxpayer dollars into them. Our representatives insist that we, the space advocate community, are demanding that NASA continue Constellation and send Americans BEO ASAP, whatever the cost.
Politics politics Miles O brian was to soft on SLS in his follow up interview on PBS in my option. I wanted him to say SLS And Orion are unsustainable porky RIPOFFS lol
He has to keep his job too lol
Joe Q
Where did all the money go! lol
🙂 good day today!
Great to see a bird coming off US soil and heading for ISS. Congrats to the SpaceX crew – job well done for sure!!!! This is a shining example of what the innovative spirit of ‘real’ spaceflight engineering is all about. NASA used to do this stuff, but those days are over. Just think of what these commercial firms could do if they had the levels of funding a Constellation or SLS.
Actually, the funding for Orion– or the SLS– would go to a manufacturer ANYWAY, it’s just that the companies profiting from an economy of scarcity have little motivation to cut costs.
Cost plus contracting isn’t exactly a good idea, but, unfortunately, the companies able to do business are not in the mindset to work fixed-price contracts… though, I suspect, SpaceX is closest to reaching that point.
I will admit that I was disappointed by the lack of a DC-X follow-on (DC-Y, etc) given that, unlike the shuttle (and the X-33), the architecture minimized the use of emergent technology. Emergent technology, in onesies and twosies might be fine for a TRUE X-program, but the X-33 broke that by having so many different items. As for the shuttle, well, the costs went up because, regardless of the blind alleys, they could not go back to Congress and say “we goofed, we have to start over with a new architectures”.
In these days there are a lot of risk averse folks who cannot appreciate Patton’s Law: “A good plan, executed today, will beat a perfect plan, executed tomorrow”. No plan, regardless of “perfection”, can survive reality’s little bits of randomness.
And… I recall a lot of discussions in alt.space.tech decades ago about dense propellants (like RP-1) vs LH2… and, despite the drop in the iSP, the use of dense propellants in the Falcon 9 seems to have paid off by cutting the amount of insulation needed… and reducing “airframe” mass.
Cost plus contracting isn’t exactly a good idea, but, unfortunately, the companies able to do business are not in the mindset to work fixed-price contracts.
They are just purposely misdirected by our idiot political system to build a BFR, when, if you want to be the world leader what you want to do now is a deep space only vehicle like NAUTILUS-X that demonstrates your power by visits to other places in the solar system.
The arsenal system space types are just a bunch of chickens and slackers that want a slow, easy life being paid billions to take 40+years to repeat what Apollo did in 10 years.
If they are as great as they think they are, they should be jumping on it now – you don’t really need HLV for it, and you can wait for launch services to gradually upscale to accommodate launch capacity growth – part of building a healthy industry out of it.
Gee – maybe it might even force the old primes to stop playing the crybaby game to Congress, and get competitive again to make a real commercial space industry a reality – because they have to, to survive.
The X-33 might have been useful as a technology demonstrator. Unfortunately it was sold as supportable by private investment in anticipation of a future single stage to orbit vehicle. This simply wasn’t realistic.
As for the shuttle, well, the costs went up because, regardless of the blind alleys, they could not go back to Congress and say “we goofed, we have to start over with a new architectures”.
Unfortunately NASA learned in Apollo that they could replace flying prototypes with the magic of systems engineering and do the testing on paper. As even Wayne hale conceded, this did not make sense. You cannot simulate what you cannot anticipate.
Ironically the X-37 was well designed as a subscale prototype incorporating lessons from the Shuttle. But NASA apparently did not remember why they ordered it.
“they could not go back to Congress and say “we goofed, we have to start over with a new architectures”. “
It seems to me that asking for a new architecture was exactly what they did every time. There was much more effort on completely novel developments (like X-33 you mentioned, the X-30 before that), than there was on incrementally improving the shuttle, or planning any kind of STS II .
And then Constellation/SLS was, of course, an entirely new architecture, even if it is pretending to reuse “proven” technologies.
The thing that Congress doesn’t fund, it would seem, are step-wise programs. Shuttle II, MER 3/4, Hubble 2. Instead, X-30/X-33/Constellation/SLS, MSL, JWST…
The thing that Congress doesn’t fund, it would seem, are step-wise
programs. Shuttle II, MER 3/4, Hubble 2. Instead,
X-30/X-33/Constellation/SLS, MSL, JWST…
You have to be around DC mind games to understand why. They divvy up budget like a bunch of capos from the mob – “Vinne gets X, Louie gets Y, ” and so on.
Incremental programs imply history and selection based on skill in the earlier tasks – what if Vinne’s group doesn’t do so well, then the congressional district it is in takes a hit – that’s unacceptable. In the all up new arrangement, you can explain it away as a cost/schedule overrun.
Why congress hates SpaceX is that it is “vertically integrated” business – effectively all in house. This means that it can’t play its traditional games of doling out parts and pieces preferentially. Both parties do this (while blaming each other speciously) – “bipartisanship” here simply means trying to agree to stack the deck.
In general, given the changing way the US economy is headed, the only way you’ll get cost effective space is by vertical or outsource models – and with the outsource model (ATK/Liberty, Orbital/Antares-Cygnus) the cost advantage/leverage is with foreign production.
Now, Congress can still divvy up things, but at the larger scale of components/systems. Why that’s sticky for them, is that its much easier to make transparent, so we all see how good/bad each of these things actually are – can’t be hidden. And, if there’s a screwup, you have to fail-over quickly to another vendor/provider in another district, which means the congressman is at risk alongside his company he’s favoring.
Different game. Though putting it off is high stakes poker. This feeds back into DoD contracts bigtime in the longterm.
Major congrats to SpaceX and NASA, this is a great startfor a difficult mission.
Just to update: the sensor bay door has opened, so one more milestone out of the way.
Great news! Thank you SpaceX engineers for your hard work!
Does anyone know whether the Dragon cargo manifest includes a cheese wheel?
– Tom
“Does anyone know whether the Dragon cargo manifest includes a cheese wheel?”
I see dead people. No cheese.
It’s great to hear the enthusiasm of this team as they cheered their accomplichments in the background of the broadcast. They worked hard and got their just reward.
Bloody well done, all!
Even Bolden seemed genuinely chuffed.
Congratulations, Space X team.
Moment of humor for me on the Video feed- cut from the young high-fiving polo shirts at Space X Control, over to the older, calmer, buttoned down ISS control center at Houston.
Sure is going to be an interesting time, these next few years.
CM, I agree, the cut from viewing the young Space X team to the NASA team was interesting. Also the different in the control room facilities and the demeanor of the groups. The Space X team all look so young, you instantly realize these people have 30 years of career ahead of them to launch and fly.
Major congratulations to everyone on the Space X team.
It’s not all kids in polo shirts, in fact, it’s far from it. To cite a single example, John Insprucker, SpaceX’s Falcon 9 program director, was formerly the USAF’s program manager for Titan II and Titan IV, and afterward was the director of the Evolved Expendable Launch Vehicle (EELV) Program. While Congress and commentators treat SpaceX as if it consists of callow twenty-somethings, this man (one of many such) has nearly 30 years of launcher experience, and Falcon 9 profits from that. SpaceX’s detractors would do well to evaluate the centuries of institutional experience the company has assembled in Hawthorne.
The ties may be missing, but the experience and expertise are not.
Ah, the ties. They look so nice. You read the study that found when a tie is worn, the IQ immediately drops 10 points, yes? And in rooms where many ties are worn the IQ drops over 50 points.
As for success, the proof is in the putting (dd), in this case putting something on orbit, which the team did well. Ties or knot.
Once Dragon docks, I’m going to celebrate … by sending a roll of toilet paper to Senator Shelby.
With any luck, with others, he’ll have enough toilet paper to fill his office with.
He’ll have enough to write his speeches on for the rest of his (hopefully shorter) carreer.
I was thinking of sending him about ten Garns worth of airsickness bags 🙂
I was going to suggest sending two model rocket kits, F9/Dragon and SLS. With the F9/Dragon model already built, and the SLS model still in parts (with several parts missing). But it might be a bit subtle for Shelby &co.
It might be better if some of the advocate groups (or TPiS) awards an annual Seized-Nut Award to the politician who is the biggest impediment to the renewal of the US space program. (Gold, silver, bronze to Shelby, Hutchison & Nelson?)
Might at least garner more publicity amongst space news blogs than just sending toilet paper to whichever staffer opens his mail.
Senator Shelby’s goal is jobs for his constituents, and no budget increase. Since every rocket development requires a budget increase for the initial launch, NASA can’t build a launch vehicle until the Senator retires. Good thing that Spacex can. (and for a lot less)
Here’s the problem…the fact that the SLS would be in pieces would be viewed by Shelby as a positive. See, because it’s in pieces, that means his state will have plenty of jobs putting it together.
What, you think Shelby cares about the overall health of the space program? Here’s the thing folks tend to forget: Shelby doesn’t represent the United States, he represents the state of Alabama. Once you understand this, you understand that his actions are rational. He was voted into office to protect the interests of his state at the national level. So, the fact that SpaceX is having a successful mission so far doesn’t matter to him at all unless it starts to rob money from his state’s projects. Whether you like it or not, that’s him doing the job he was elected to do. SpaceX’s success won’t have even the slightest affect on his reelection hopes as long as he’s bringing jobs into the state via SLS, so, as long as SLS is being funded, he’s winning.
Of course, the same thing goes for every other congressman, too – again, it’s their job to put their states first, and you should expect them to do that every chance they get. That doesn’t mean that this is a good thing, but it’s the way it is. It’s part of what’s contributed to the mess the space program is in at the moment: Executive branch direction for NASA has been weak to nonexistent, so Congress has picked up the ball and is running with it. That leads to a NASA led by Congressional priorities – in other words, a NASA pulled in 535 different directions.
“Shelby doesn’t represent the United States, he represents the state of Alabama.”
That’s not true. He represents a group of people who are citizens both of the state of Alabama and of the United States. Those people care about both the state and the country. He has to try to appeal to both.
If all the people he represents really understood what was going on, I’m confident they’d disagree with his decisions.
That’s why you never hear him speaking about it as purposely sacrificing the national interests for local interests. People don’t want that.
The real problem is that most people are misinformed about how SLS is hurting the space program. That starts with all the people being employed by SLS, the vast majority of whom likely honestly believe it’s a good thing, because they’re part of large organizations where the culture says this is the right way to do things.
“He has to try to appeal to both.”
That’s the problem though…he doesn’t. As long as Shelby’s not doing anything illegal, the citizens of the United States as a whole don’t have any say in the matter; his continued employment in the US Senate is decided entirely by the percentage of citizens of the state of Alabama that decide to show up to the voting booth on election day. As long as he’s keeping that group happy, he’s happy.
“If all the people he represents really understood what was going on…”
I reckon that’s a mighty big “if”. You’re assuming an educated electorate, one that thinks critically and isn’t swayed by things like image or mudslinging. Sadly, nowadays, that’s not always a sound assumption.
This is a excellent dialog on the subject.
BTW, my toilet paper reference is in regards to the senators own comment about waiting for them to get to the point of delivering said item. This flight they can.
Please focus on the balance between “national need”, “state need”, “party need”, and “special interest need”.
SpaceX tried to tilt in an accommodating direction, by having some of their company in Florida, Georgia, Texas, and California. Admittedly this is limited, however, what can you do while retaining the vertical business structure that makes SpaceX possible?
We must adapt our approach for America to succeed in space. And other endeavors.
Yet on the national front, polarization attempts to make this impossible. Leading to one ineffectual party, and another with a conflicted, irrational dogma that is denying reality too much of the time.
If you are do any “rocket science”, you know the costs of this kind of discord.
I’ll take success over purity of ideology – any day.
” … we’re handing off to the private sector …” getting a little bit ahead of yourself aren’t you Chuckie?
Good launch, congratulations SpaceX. Lets see how the rest goes, remember the mission is over when the ship safely lands.
Good morning everyone:
Heard your interview this morning Keith on BBC World Service. I think you did a fair assessment of the topic with the time you were given and the questions (always of course the time is limited in the broadcast world).
Today’s successful SpaceX Falcon 9 launch is another step, among many more to come, to optimize reliability/safety vs performance vs cost for LEO and beyond space utilization in the United States and other countries in the world.
In my humble opinion the US states that are wise enough will grasp this momentum and attract more space commercial business to their inhabitants.
S Roshan
Another great test flight launch. I just hope if their is anymore tweaking to do they get the opportunity during this last test flight and they wring it out before the operational CRS phase starts.
The “tweaking” never stopped on any LV I’ve ever been involved with. I hear that’s also been true for the Soyuz for almost five decades.
What I think you mean to say is “where launches begin to become more routine”. That’s about 6-10 when they stop changing the gross design of the vehicle.
For Falcon / Dragon about the time it becomes manned.
That was outstanding a well worth staying up for (again). We’ve all been waiting for this day for a long time. Looking forward to Friday and prox-ops.
Had a great view of the launch plume and MECO 2 from Hampton, VA. Big surprise as to how bright it was, after having seen 4 Shuttle launches at night and evening to ISS. I think possibly a combination of the particles in the exhaust, the vehicle rising into the sunlight, and the high, thin cloud layer.
Unfortunately – no pictures to share. Great job SpaceX.
From the Tampa, FL area, the flame looked not as bright as the shuttle SRB and redder. Looked about as long as the SRB flame though. Was definitely slower than the shuttle.
Folks:
The Hall of Shame Awards goes to most of the ‘journalists’ at the post-launch press conference… on two counts.
Count one: Picking on the most vulnerable person in the panel, Elon Musk. Like vultures swooping in on their prey.
Count two: Pushing Spacex on their ‘secret payload’. What private deals Spacex makes is none of anyone’s business. Get used to it.
Shame!
tinker
With a few notable exceptions, most of the journalists covering this launch know a lot less about this subject than they should. There are currently only about ten journalists practicing who I would trust to do a complete and thorough job of reporting news in this field.
Wonderful. And those people have done something to be really proud of. One relatively small group of people. They designed it, build it, integrated it and now have flown it. Definitely not part of the government military industrial complex that Ike so feared that that soaked us for so many billions the last 40 years with so little to show for it. Hopefully this is the beginning of the real golden age of spaceflight and exploration; like Dec 17, 1935, first flight of the DC-3, the first cost-effective, ‘modern’ airliner. Maybe its time to turn ISS over to Mr. Musk or his friends to operate more efficiently and more cost effectively. Let the tens of thousands of NASA people and their contractors watch from the sidelines with their billions upon billions of dollars.
This is a fantastic day for commercial spaceflight and a major step forward for the US to return to a space leadership role after abject failure of NASA and the Obama (and Bush) Administrations to sustain such a role. Space X must now consolidate with more missions, and then aim for crew delivery to the ISS in coming years, ending US dependence on Russia for access – an unacceptable situation in the long-term.
This should be seen as the end of the beginning of human commercial spaceflight, and companies should strive to emulate and then compete with each other for offering more and more options for both crewed and unmanned space activities, both in Earth orbit, and well beyond. NASA is clearly not going to lead the way. Space X sets the example – the other companies need to follow in their footsteps.
Well done Space X and well done America!
Malcolm Davis,
Gold Coast, Australia
Personally, I would love to give a “collective bird” to Senator Shelby and all the other congress critters constantly putting down the commercial space efforts, cutting NASA funds for supporting commercial efforts, and redirecting funds to their expensive pork-barrel Constellation/SLS/Orion systems.