- \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
The first launch attempt was scrubbed at T-0.5 seconds \u2013 with the engines firing \u2013 due to a problem with a nitrogen purge valve on Engine 5, an issue SpaceX later claimed would not have caused a problematic launch, as much as the flight computer did the right thing by aborting the \u201ctrending high\u201d parameter on the Merlin engine\u2019s chamber pressure readings.<\/p>\n
With the valve replaced at the pad, with plenty of time to spare until the next opportunity on Tuesday morning, SpaceX\u2019s team indirectly proved one of its strengths, with its \u201cin house\u201d engineering team not being delayed by having to consult and debate with numerous external vendors, an issue that could sometimes be seen with other vehicles such as shuttle, as much as the shuttle was a far more complex vehicle by nature.<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.nasaspaceflight.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/05\/Z318.jpg\" "\\"Z3\\"")
With a smooth countdown, suffering from no issues relating to SpaceX\u2019s hardware, the clock once again ticked down to the ignition of the nine Falcon 9 engines, this time resulting in a lift-off and a nominal first stage flight through the key stages of achieving the correct trajectory, and passing through MaxQ.<\/p>\nA nominal staggered shutdown (MECO) of Falcon 9\u2019s engines was followed by a clean staging and ignition of the single Merlin engine (MVac), again with nominal performance through to the injection of Dragon into the desired orbit, as much as it was slightly off the pre-published orbital target.<\/p>\n
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Dragon was then tasked with some immediate firsts, all required mission objectives to allow Dragon to proceed towards the ultimate goal of berthing with the International Space Station (ISS).<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.nasaspaceflight.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/05\/Z415.jpg\" "\\"Z4\\"")
The first came just a few minutes after the end of the powered flight, as both solar arrays came to life and deployed. With video coverage still available, images of both arrays successfully deployed was greeted by loud cheers by the gathered SpaceX team outside the Mission Control Center (MCC) in Hawthorne, California.<\/p>\nThis event was a mission first for SpaceX, with the arrays providing life blood to the Dragon for its longest mission to date. However, they were not out of the woods yet, per the list of immediate requirements of potentially completing both the C2 and C3 mission objectives.<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.nasaspaceflight.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/05\/Z6411.jpg\" "\\"Z641\\"")
That next milestone came with the opening of the GNC door on the spacecraft, a requirement to allow Dragon to navigate in space with its Light Detection and Ranging, or LIDAR hardware. The LIDAR system aboard the Dragon spacecraft is known as DragonEye, and is used for ranging and direction finding during Dragon\u2019s approach to the ISS.<\/p>\nThat procedure was success, as the door opened and importantly latched into a fixed position, a milestone that also exposed the grapple fixture that the Space Station Remote Manipulator System (SSRMS) will grab hold of, to allow the \u201cbig arm\u201d to carefully translate the spacecraft towards its berthing point on the orbital outpost.<\/p>\n
And that date with history is now fast approaching, as Dragon enters a stage of the flight known as far field phasing. However, Dragon still has a lot of work to complete ahead of being allowed to get close to the Station, with numerous testing requirements under the C2 portion of the test flight.<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.nasaspaceflight.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/05\/Z92.jpg\" "\\"Z92\\"")
During this period, Dragon will perform Free Drift, and Abort Demos, while conducting checks on its Absolute GPS (AGPS) system.<\/p>\nPer L2 information (L2 Link), Free Drift is performed in this early mission timeframe for spacecraft efficiency, but is not required until Dragon reaches the capture point. However, the AGPS and Abort tests are required prior to the Go\/No-Go for the HA2\/CE2 burn pair, a burn pair that will take Dragon to 2.5 km below ISS \u2013 a distance chosen as acceptable in relation to posing no risk to the Station in the event of a problem.<\/p>\n
This early phase of the mission is full of objectives as part of the flight rules, ensuring Dragon is capable of carrying out the requirements, prior to actually arriving at the ISS.<\/p>\n
\u201cAbort: Demonstrate both types of abort burns, large on axis and small pulsed off axis. Confirmation of expected delta V and attitude error are within bounds,\u201d listed the objectives on the mission walkthrough (L2). \u201cAGPS: Confirmation that Dragon position and velocity is accurate within error bounds. Based on comparison of Dragon dissimilar navigation measurements.<\/p>\n
Click here for other Dragon News Articles: http:\/\/www.nasaspaceflight.com\/tag\/dragon\/<\/p>\n
\u201cRecover from Free Drift: Confirmation that Dragon mode changes to and from Free Drift. Verification that required system inhibits are put in place prior to free drift and removed when Dragon recovers from free drift. Confirmation that recovery attitude error is within bounds and Dragon remains in that attitude.\u201d<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.nasaspaceflight.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/05\/Z11121.jpg\" "\\"Z1112\\"")
Completing these objectives will provide the required confidence in allowing Dragon to move on to the next phase of testing, whilst in the ISS\u2019 back yard.<\/p>\nThose events will occur on Flight Day 3, as the Dragon makes a flyby of the ISS at a distance of 2.5 kilometres (1.3 nautical miles, 1.6 statute miles). During this flyby, tests of the Relative Global Positioning System (RGPS) and COTS UHF Communications Unit (CUCU) will be conducted.<\/p>\n
For the interim, and for most of Flight Day 2, the mission will be dedicated to orbit phasing, as the the Dragon first circularising its orbit, and subsequently raising itself towards the orbit of the ISS, all leading towards Friday\u2019s historic berthing.<\/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":"
Preliminary results are showing SpaceX\u2019s Falcon 9 enjoyed a nominal ride uphill \u2013 with no issues \u2013 prior to deploying the Dragon spacecraft on orbit. So as not to let down its ride, Dragon then passed several major \u2013 and new \u2013 milestones, including the deployment of both solar arrays, and the opening of its […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":30418,"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":[1395,479,233,316],"class_list":["post-40113","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-dragon","tag-falcon-9","tag-iss","tag-spacex"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40113"}],"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=40113"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40113\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/30418"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=40113"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=40113"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=40113"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}