- \n
- SpaceX F9\/Dragon Updates<\/li>\n
- L2 Dragon C2+ Mission Special<\/li>\n
- L2 ISS Section<\/li>\n
- Click here to Join L2<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
\u201cThe SpaceX Far Field demos completed were the Abort Burns, Absolute Global Positioning System (AGPS) checkout, and Free Drift Recovery. Dragon arrives at the 2.5 km co-elliptic orbit for the fly-under and associated Fly Under Demos at approximately 2:49am CDT on Thursday.\u201d<\/p>\n
Chasing down the Station, Dragon conducted what is know as far field phasing operations, ahead of Thursday\u2019s major objective of flying under the ISS for a test of the UHF communication ability, via the COTS UHF Communication Unit (CUCU) system, allowing for commands to be received from the Station.<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.nasaspaceflight.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/05\/Z319.jpg\" "\\"Z3\\"")
The Commercial Orbital Transportation Services (COTS) Ultra High Frequency (UHF) Communication Unit rode in the middeck stowage locker on Atlantis during STS-129 late in 2009, before being handed over to ISS crewmembers ahead of the demonstration flights.<\/p>\nThe Hardware\/Software was designed, built, and verified as per the requirements of: CUCU Interface Requirements Document (IRD). CUCU EXPRESS Rack Interface Control Document (ICD). CUCU Software Requirements \u2018derived\u2019 from COTS IRD, according to STS-129 Shuttle Flight Readiness Review (FRR) documentation \u2013 L2 Link.<\/p>\n
Space Shuttle
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Cabling and seat track brackets \u2013 part of mod kit 1 \u2013 were delivered to the Station via the Russian Progress resupply ship 35P, ahead of integration and checkout of the communication unit.<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.nasaspaceflight.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/05\/Z66.jpg\" "\\"Z6\\"")
\u201cSpaceX (provided) the CCP Cable, connectors and RF couplers (4 qty). ISS to CUCU cables (NASA\/Boeing provided hardware) provided via STS-129,\u201d added the FRR presentation, listing the hardware that flew up on the Russian Progress and Atlantis.<\/p>\n\u201cMod Kit I: Four cable harnesses: 1553 (2 qty), RF (1 qty), Redundant Power (1 qty) and RF Coupler Assembly (1 qty).Two cables provided by Express Rack (primary power, Ethernet), already on-orbit. Mod Kit II: Audio Cable and 1 Audio switch box.\u201d<\/p>\n
The new system allows ISS crewmembers to monitor and command approaching or departing Dragon spacecraft during cargo delivery missions to the orbiting laboratory.<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.nasaspaceflight.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/05\/Z416.jpg\" "\\"Z4\\"")
\u201cCUCU provides a bi-directional, half-duplex communications link between Dragon and ISS using existing ISS UHF Space to Space Station Radio (SSSR) antennas, which provides a communication path between MCCX (SpaceX) and Dragon during proximity operations and a command security between ISS and Dragon,\u201d noted STS-129 FRR documentation on L2.<\/p>\n\u201cUnit mounted inside a rack on ISS and connected to ISS data, audio, and UHF antenna resources \u2013 provides a separate Crew Command Panel (CCP) for crew interface to Dragon.\u201d<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.nasaspaceflight.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/05\/A3241.jpg\" "\\"A324\\"")
The on-orbit checkout of the CUCU began January 25, 2010, when astronaut Jeff Williams, ISS Expedition 22 Commander, worked with ground-based team members at SpaceX headquarters and ISS mission control in Houston to power-up and checkout the new system.<\/p>\nOn March 11 of that year, SpaceX and Mission Control Houston performed an additional series of tests, using the new system to send communications between the ISS and the NASA Dryden ground station.<\/p>\n
This provided a baseline of the radio frequency performance and confirmed the first set of antennas performed as expected and is ready for mission operations.<\/p>\n
The tests employed live video and telemetry links from the ISS to verify the hardware\u2019s functionality, broadcast and reception signal strengths, and the system\u2019s stability over long-duration operations.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe success of this series of tests speaks to our close collaboration with NASA as well as the SpaceX process that allowed the rapid development of this new hardware,\u201d said Marco Villa, SpaceX Mission Operations Manager, at the time of the tests.<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.nasaspaceflight.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/05\/Z75.jpg\" "\\"Z7\\"")
For Thursday\u2019s test, Dragon conducted a High Adjustment (HA2) burn, prior to Co-Elliptical burn (CE2) on Thursday. Both burns were successful, allowing for the spacecraft to carry out the fly under of the Station, riding on a \u201cracetrack\u201d circuit under, in front, over and behind the ISS.<\/p>\n\u201cDragon flies under ISS at 2.5 km. During the fly-under UHF communication via the CUCU system is established with ISS. The Commanding from ISS and RGPS Demonstrations are performed. 2.5 km was specifically chosen by SpaceX because Dragon does not pose a hazard at that distance,\u201d noted the L2 mission walkthrough \u2013 L2 Link.<\/p>\n
The main objective of the test was to send a command from the Station to the Dragon, confirmed by flashing a strobe light on the SpaceX vehicle, as the spacecraft flew into ISS\u2019 UHF comm range.<\/p>\n
Click here for other Dragon News Articles: http:\/\/www.nasaspaceflight.com\/tag\/dragon\/<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.nasaspaceflight.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/05\/Z91.jpg\" "\\"Z9\\"")
With the DragonEye LIDAR acquiring the ISS, the ISS then successfully set up the CUCU link and commanded the strobe light as planned. While lighting conditions did not allow for the ISS crew to observe the strobe light, ISS cameras did manage to gain some views of the Dragon, as it flew under the station.<\/p>\nDragon then proceeded forward of the ISS and is now in the process of \u201creversing\u201d the CE and HA burns ops to fall back behind to the starting point of the invisible racetrack ahead of Friday\u2019s return beneath the ISS, in readiness for berthing.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe ISS crew will briefly interact with Dragon, monitoring the fly-under and sending a strobe command from the CCP,\u201d added the walkthrough. \u201cThe 2.5 km fly-under is completed and a pre-planned re-rendezvous is initiated. Go\/No-Gos for the forward and rear re-rendezvous burns are required. The re-rendezvous ends with Dragon on a co-elliptic 10 km below ISS.\u201d<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.nasaspaceflight.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/05\/Z510.jpg\" "\\"Z5\\"")
Establishing communications between the Station and Dragon is critical, ahead of Friday\u2019s key objective of carefully allowing Dragon to approach the ISS, via a series of Go\/No Go points.<\/p>\nWhile Dragon\u2019s own software can abort the approach, the rendezvous can be halted via the ISS and the CUCU unit. An inability to communicate with Dragon from the Station would be potentially hazardous for the ISS and its crew.<\/p>\n
Dragon is now preparing to enter the C3 elements of the combined demonstration mission, a complex set of objectives that will hopefully mark the first arrival of a private spacecraft to the ISS.<\/p>\n
(Images: NASA, SpaceX and via L2\u2019s SpaceX Dragon C2+ Mission Special Section \u2013 Containing presentations, videos, images, interactive high level updates and more, with additional images via NASA, SpaceX). <\/p>\n
(Click here: http:\/\/www.nasaspaceflight.com\/l2\/ \u2013 to view how you can support NSF and access the best space flight content on the entire internet).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
One of the major test objectives of Dragon\u2019s Commercial Orbital Transportation Services (COTS) test flight was completed early on Thursday, as the SpaceX spacecraft flew under the International Space Station (ISS) and successfully received commands via a UHF system. Dragon continues to be on schedule for its historic berthing with the ISS on Friday. Dragon […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":30419,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[1395,233,316],"class_list":["post-40112","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-dragon","tag-iss","tag-spacex"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40112"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=40112"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40112\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/30419"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=40112"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=40112"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=40112"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}