SpaceX Dragon Heads to Space Station After Successful Launch

SpaceX — Dragon CRS-17 Mission patch.

May 4, 2019

Image above: SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket and Dragon spacecraft lift off from Space Launch Complex 40 on Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida. Photo credit: NASA.

More than 5,500 pounds of cargo is on its way to the International Space Station aboard a SpaceX Dragon spacecraft. The company’s 17th commercial cargo mission to resupply the space station began at 2:48 a.m. EDT on May 4, 2019, with liftoff aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from Space Launch Complex 40 at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida.

Kenny Todd, International Space Station Operations and Integration manager at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston, explained during the postlaunch press conference that launch success far overshadowed fatigue with the early morning launch.

Falcon 9 launches CRS-17 Dragon & Falcon 9 first stage landing

“If you have to be up, I can’t think of a better reason than to see one of these launches — it was absolutely spectacular,” Todd said. “We’re really excited to get Dragon on board in a couple of days.”

After a successful climb into space, the Dragon spacecraft now is in orbit with its solar arrays deployed and drawing power.

Image above: Dragon’s solar arrays deploy en route to the International Space Station on Saturday, May 4, 2019. Photo credit: NASA.

“We had a beautiful launch today; it was really great,” said Hans Koenigsmann, SpaceX’s vice president, Build and Flight Reliability. “Dragon is on the way, the orbiter is great — it’s right on the money.”

The Dragon spacecraft will deliver science, supplies and hardware to the orbiting laboratory. Science experiments include NASA’s Orbiting Carbon Observatory 3 (OCO-3) and Space Test Program-Houston 6 (STP-H6).

OCO-3 will be robotically installed on the exterior of the space station’s Japanese Experiment Module Exposed Facility Unit, where it will measure and map carbon dioxide from space to increase our understanding of the relationship between carbon and climate.

Image above: From left to right, Joshua Santora, NASA Communications; Kenny Todd, manager, International Space Station Operations and Integration, NASA’s Johnson Space Center; and Hans Koenigsmann, vice president, Build and Flight Reliability, SpaceX, participate in a postlaunch press conference at Kennedy Space Center following the SpaceX CRS-17 launch on May 4, 2019. The Dragon spacecraft will arrive at the International Space Station on Monday, May 6. Photo credit: NASA.

STP-H6 is an X-ray communication investigation that will be used to perform a space-based demonstration of a new technology for generating beams of modulated X-rays. This technology may be useful for providing efficient communication to deep space probes, or communicating with hypersonic vehicles where plasma sheaths prevent traditional radio communications.

Live coverage of the rendezvous and capture will air on NASA Television and the agency’s website beginning at 5:30 a.m. on Monday, May 6. Capture is scheduled for 7 a.m.; installation coverage is set to begin at 9 a.m. Astronauts aboard the station will capture the Dragon using the space station’s robotic arm and then install it on the station’s Harmony module.

The Dragon spacecraft will spend about four weeks attached to the space station, returning to Earth with more than 4,200 pounds of research, hardware and crew supplies.

Related articles:

Drone Ship Power Issue Forces Scrub of CRS-17 Launch
https://orbiterchspacenews.blogspot.com/2019/05/drone-ship-power-issue-forces-scrub-of_48.html

Hermes to Bring Asteroid Research to the ISS
https://orbiterchspacenews.blogspot.com/2019/04/hermes-to-bring-asteroid-research-to-iss.html

Dragon’s 17th Flight Carries Science to the Space Station
https://orbiterchspacenews.blogspot.com/2019/04/dragons-17th-flight-carries-science-to.html

Related links:

Orbiting Carbon Observatory 3 (OCO-3): https://ocov3.jpl.nasa.gov/

Space Test Program-Houston 6 (STP-H6): https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/research/experiments/explorer/Investigation.html?#id=7947

NASA Television and the agency’s website: http://www.nasa.gov/live

For updates during the mission, visit https://www.nasa.gov/commercialresupply.

Images (mentioned), Video, Text, Credits: NASA/James Cawley/SpaceX/NASA TV/SciNews.

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