SpaceX Dragon Safe Splashdown
Dragon Spacecraft Returns to Earth in First Official Cargo Resupply Mission to Space Station, SpaceX
““This historic mission signifies the restoration of America’s ability to deliver and return critical space station cargo,” said SpaceX CEO and Chief Technical Officer Elon Musk. “The reliability of SpaceX’s technology and the strength of our partnership with NASA provide a strong foundation for future missions and achievements to come.””
SpaceX Dragon Returns from Space Station with NASA Cargo, NASA JSC
“A Space Exploration Technologies (SpaceX) Dragon spacecraft splashed down in the Pacific Ocean at 2:22 p.m. CDT Sunday a few hundred miles west of Baja California, Mexico. The splashdown successfully ended the first contracted cargo delivery flight contracted by NASA to resupply the International Space Station.”
two for two
Awesome…
Dennis:
Three for three in Dragon recovery. Since NASA ordered all new Dragon capsules for their cargo flights, SpaceX has a bunch of flight ready spacecraft just lying around. I noticed that SpaceX hung their first flown Dragon capsule high above the gallery outside their mission control in Hawthorne.
tinker
The media seems to have become bored already.
JH:
SpaceX and NASA just have to keep folks engaged is all. Dragon could test it´s crew docking system long before they have their launch abort thrusters installed. A spaceship like that would be a good lifeboat too. Crew rated for the trip down at least.
tinker
yup they need to add a little newness with each flight.
Growth!!!! 🙂
The reason why they’er bored is because no one is putting out deorbit animation and live descend of the dragon. What do you expect. I was looking for some sort of live footage but instead all I got was some blogging that was just couple of sentences. What a disappointment. Love these blind second stage flight and dragon deorbit and landings!
it may be because their goal is to make money and not entertain the public…
But then again, acquiring public acceptance is a standard marketing requirement and recognized as a cost of doing business, so I would have expected some effort on SpaceX’s part (but never from NASA, of course) to jazz this up and make it seem to Joe Public like a major accomplishment.
And in the long run, it is a
major accomplishment, since doing something once is no guarantee that it’s repeatable. Now we know for certain that F9/Dragon is repeatable. And each additional mission makes it that much more viable.
We have witnessed the beginning of the future in US space operations, while the demonstrated Russian space capabilities continue to deteriorate and China quietly goes its own way. America is back in the game, and sticking with COTS/CCDev made it possible. Let’s hope that Congress can grow a brain and quit trying to thwart further
COTS/CCDev contracts and SSAs.Steve
Live video is nice, unless the vehicle burns up or sinks. Getting a wee bit more confidence first is not a bad thing. When it has become routine live feeds will be a nice kicker.
Firsts, and lasts is what the media usually wants to cover. Routine is … well .. boring. Just like autoracing .. you usually do not even notice a race happened, unless someone went over the wall or something.
Looking through the CRS-1 press guide I found a spec. for Dragon of 3500lbs. internal and external,7000lbs. total.Quite a drop from the 12,000lbs. that is still on their Website.I guess this is NASA cargo capacity.Too bad they recycle water.That would make the weight.Gerst. said that Dragon,Cygnus,Progress will be the only cargo haulers to ISS.Just what Dragon brings back is worth the cost of one 130 million $ flight.I think they will have to increase the up cargo weight to have enough to supply ISS.
Isn’t getting water up into space a good idea?? A dragon trunk that uses left over lift to add water to a water depot in space??
Why not???
To: “the public”
This is a big deal!