Dragon Is In Orbit!

In article
tatelephone,
says...

Whole ascent went just great, and they got some really good video of the
stage burns and Dragon separation.

I watched the video live and was amazed at how stable Falcon 9 was
during the 1st and 2nd stage burns. The earth (in the camera
background) was rock solid, which shows that the attitude and roll of
Falcon 9 was rock solid. Nicely done!

This page has updates:
http://www.spacex.com/webcast.php

Jeff
--
42

On Dec 8, 1:23*pm, Pat Flannery wrote:
On 12/8/2010 9:55 AM, Pat Flannery wrote:

Whole ascent went just great, and they got some really good video of the
stage burns and Dragon separation.

Good communications with Dragon, and she is firing her thrusters.
No word yet if they got a successful parachute recovery on the first stage.

Pat

Since the first stage represents most of the hardware - recovery of it
is potentially very interesting in producing a low-cost operation. I
know they had cracks on their expansion nozzle after testing the upper
stage engines. First stage seemed to be in better shape after testing
- despite high pressure in the chamber during one of the tests.

What was the TRL-rating of the parachute recovery system before they
flew it here? I think theyre calling it an evaluation - before making
claims about it - which is sensible. Still, reusable systems are the
way to go where possible. The first stage is low hanging fruit as
Buzz Aldrin has been saying for 40 years, and vonBraun said for 40
years before that! I'm glad to see SpaceX is doing something about
it.

On Dec 8, 11:06*am, Jeff Findley wrote:
In article
tatelephone,
says...



Whole ascent went just great, and they got some really good video of the
stage burns and Dragon separation.

I watched the video live and was amazed at how stable Falcon 9 was
during the 1st and 2nd stage burns. *The earth (in the camera
background) was rock solid, which shows that the attitude and roll of
Falcon 9 was rock solid. *Nicely done!

This page has updates:
* *http://www.spacex.com/webcast.php

Jeff
--
42

Liquid fueled rockets are very smooth compared to solids. Vibration
resistant gyroscopicaly stabilized cameras were first developed by the
movie industry for use on helicopters. If you look at the rocket body
as well as the Earth I think some of the solidity had to do with the
excellent engineering that went into the camera as well as the rocket
itself.

On Dec 8, 9:00*am, William Mook wrote:
On Dec 8, 1:23*pm, Pat Flannery wrote:

On 12/8/2010 9:55 AM, Pat Flannery wrote:

Whole ascent went just great, and they got some really good video of the
stage burns and Dragon separation.

Good communications with Dragon, and she is firing her thrusters.
No word yet if they got a successful parachute recovery on the first stage.

Pat

Since the first stage represents most of the hardware - recovery of it
is potentially very interesting in producing a low-cost operation. *I
know they had cracks on their expansion nozzle after testing the upper
stage engines. *First stage seemed to be in better shape after testing
- despite high pressure in the chamber during one of the tests.

What was the TRL-rating of the parachute recovery system before they
flew it here? *I think theyre calling it an evaluation - before making
claims about it - which is sensible. *Still, reusable systems are the
way to go where possible. *The first stage is low hanging fruit as
Buzz Aldrin has been saying for 40 years, and vonBraun said for 40
years before that! *I'm glad to see SpaceX is doing something about
it.

Too bad they had to reinvent most everything, and trial and error lear
on the fly (so to speak), instead of using existing technology that
was proven reliable and even in surplus, as in all bought and paid for
several times over, not to mention our having wasted yet another
public funded decade.

~ BG

Whole ascent went just great, and they got some really good video of the
stage burns and Dragon separation.

Pat

On 12/8/2010 9:55 AM, Pat Flannery wrote:
Whole ascent went just great, and they got some really good video of the
stage burns and Dragon separation.

Good communications with Dragon, and she is firing her thrusters.
No word yet if they got a successful parachute recovery on the first stage.

Pat

On 12/8/2010 10:23 AM, Pat Flannery wrote:
On 12/8/2010 9:55 AM, Pat Flannery wrote:
Whole ascent went just great, and they got some really good video of the
stage burns and Dragon separation.

Good communications with Dragon, and she is firing her thrusters.

And she came down intact in the landing area, and has been recovered:
http://spaceflightnow.com/falcon9/002/status.html
Now NASA is having a press conference, and the sound is all screwed up.
Way to go, NASA. :-D

Pat

On Dec 8, 4:25*pm, Pat Flannery wrote:
On 12/8/2010 10:23 AM, Pat Flannery wrote:

On 12/8/2010 9:55 AM, Pat Flannery wrote:
Whole ascent went just great, and they got some really good video of the
stage burns and Dragon separation.

Good communications with Dragon, and she is firing her thrusters.

And she came down intact in the landing area, and has been recovered:http://spaceflightnow.com/falcon9/002/status.html
Now NASA is having a press conference, and the sound is all screwed up.
Way to go, NASA. :-D


It sounded just fine to me. Maybe something to do with your end of
things?

Big congrats to both Space X and NASA. This is how these kinds of
things should work for government-private business partnerships.
NASA's help, both in being a reliable customer, and in providing
technology with the Ames-developed PICA heatshield insulation as well
as other support. The same with Bigelow Aerospace and the transfer of
the Transhab technologies developed at Johnson Space Center.

One thing I take exception to is Elon Musk trying to paint Dragon as
having more capability than Orion. As an example he claimed that the
Dragon class capsules had more volume than does an Orion one. Yet
simple geometrics shows that to be incorrect since Orion is the wider
and taller of the two, has 19 meters cubed of internal volume versus
10 m^3 for Dragon. I would find it hard to believe that the available
*habitable* volume (8.9 m^3 for Orion) is signficantly less than
Dragon's. Also Orion's service module is far bigger than Dragon's, and
an Orion spacecraft as a whole is twice as massive as a Dragon is
given the Orion is intended to support manned deep space missions from
the get-go.

So Elon, please, get your facts straight, or just ease off on the
hype. Orion will live or die on it's own, you just need to stay on
course and focus on ensuring more success for Dragon and Falcon 9, and
you'll have a pretty good slice of the LEO cargo and human
transportation market.
-Mike

Also Orion's service module is far bigger than Dragon's, and
an Orion spacecraft as a whole is twice as massive as a Dragon is
given the Orion is intended to support manned deep space missions from
the get-go.

The original Orion was intended to do that. Isn't the compromised,
stripped-down one forced by Ares I limitations a great deal less
capable?

Matt

On Wed, 8 Dec 2010 21:02:53 -0800 (PST), Matt
wrote:

Also Orion's service module is far bigger than Dragon's, and
an Orion spacecraft as a whole is twice as massive as a Dragon is
given the Orion is intended to support manned deep space missions from
the get-go.

The original Orion was intended to do that. Isn't the compromised,
stripped-down one forced by Ares I limitations a great deal less
capable?

No, it went from six to four crew for ISS missions (it never needed
six anyway with Soyuz ever-present) and abandoned land recovery, but
it is still Beyond LEO capable.

Brian