On Mon, 8 Oct 2012 07:38:35 -0700 (PDT), Alejandro Zuzek
wrote:

According to Spaceflight Now, the first operational cargo flight of the Dragon spacecraft is carrying 1001 pounds of cargo. On the other hand, on the same site it is mentioned that Dragon is capable of carrying 3310 kg. I assume that figure is for ISS flights since the Dragon data sheet on the SpaceX site says it can carry 6000 kg into LEO and up to 3000 kg down mass. So why only 1001 pounds of cargo on this flight and why only 1995 pounds of down mass? To this layman, it seems that the flight is underutilized.

Part of the reason is that the full Dragon capability has to wait for
Falcon 9 v1.1 whicih debuts next year.

But stiil, this is very lightly loaded.

Brian