Earlier this month, a SpaceX Crew Dragon spacecraft launched to the space station with a fresh set of four crew members for a six-month expedition, replacing four station residents who returned to Earth on a separate Crew Dragon capsule Saturday night. This mission, known as CRS-27, continues a busy schedule for the seven-person crew on the space station, and their ground support teams on Earth. The resupply flight is SpaceX’s 27th cargo deliver mission to the International Space Station, a series of logistics launches that began in 2012 under a multibillion-dollar Commercial Resupply Services contract with NASA. The Falcon 9 thundered into a mostly clear sky on a crisp evening at the Florida spaceport. Liftoff of the Dragon spacecraft atop a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket occurred at 8:30:42 p.m. In addition to recovering the rocket's first stage, SpaceX will also retrieve the payload fairings (aka the rocket's nose cone) which protect the payload as the rocket soars through the atmosphere.A SpaceX Cargo Dragon spacecraft packed with nearly 6,300 pounds of fresh food, hardware, and experiments for the International Space Station lifted off Tuesday night from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida, kicking off a 36-hour transit to the orbiting research complex where it will dock for a month-long mission. The landing marked the fifth successful touchdown for this particular booster and the 97th overall landing of a Falcon 9 rocket since 2015. To that end, it has to conduct a "dog-leg" maneuver, meaning it has to change orbital planes after launch, going from a 28.5-degree inclination to a 0.2-degree equatorial orbit. That's because IXPE has to fly over the equator, in a lower orbit, to shield itself from excess radiation exposure that it would receive in higher orbits and to be closer to the ground stations it will be communicating with. That's because it has an ideal water suppression system that will help mitigate the launch effects from the rocket, helping to keep the IXPE satellite safe on its way to orbit.ĭunn, along with Juliana Scheiman, SpaceX's director of civil satellite missions, said that IXPE's intended orbit is really putting the Falcon 9 through its paces. Named "Just Read the Instructions," the drone ship was waiting out in the Atlantic Ocean to catch the booster and haul it back to port to fly again.ĭunn told that typically LSP lets the launch provider pick the launch pad a mission launches from if the company has multiple options, but in this case Pad 39A was the perfect match. This beats SpaceX's record for the most rockets launched in a single year - the company launched 26 in 2020 - with two more launches on the schedule before the end of this year.įollowing a successful liftoff, the rocket's first stage landed on one of the company's three massive drone ships, which serve as floating landing pads. Thursday's pre-dawn flight marks the 131st overall flight of a Falcon 9 and the 28th Falcon 9 to fly in 2021. This veteran launcher, called B1061, has carried eight astronauts into space as part of NASA's first two long-duration missions (Crew-1 and Crew-2), a total of three different Dragon spacecraft, including a cargo mission in August, and a broadband satellite for Sirius XM. 7), an Atlas V rocket blasted off from an adjacent launch pad, carrying a mix of payloads into space for the U.S. Thursday's flight also marks the second rocket launch from Cape Canaveral this week. NASA's Imaging X-ray Polarimetry Explorer (IXPE) is pictured at Ball Aerospace in Boulder, Colorado, on Dec.
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