CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. — A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket, the final Block 4 version of the launch vehicle to be launched, lifted of from the Cape’s Space Launch Complex 40 on a mission to resupply the International Space Station (ISS) on Friday, June 29, 2018.

The flight got underway at 5:42 a.m. EDT (09:42 GMT) with the CRS-15 Dragon spacecraft perched atop the approximately 230-foot (70-meter) tall F9. The “flight-proven” Dragon spacecraft was tasked with carrying an estimated 5,900 pounds (2,676 kilograms) worth of supplies and equipment to low-Earth orbit (LEO). From there, it is scheduled to rendezvous with the ISS on July 2.

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. -- The last Block 4 variant of the Falcon 9 rocket was launched from Canaveral's Space Launch Complex 40 in Florida on June 29, 2018. The mission, a cargo run to the International Space Station under NASA's Commercial Resupply Services contract. The CRS-15 cargo Dragon spacecraft began its ascent toward the International Space Station at 5:42 a.m. EDT. Photos courtesy: Scott Schilke, Mike Deep, Mike Howard, Michael McCabe, Vikash Mahadeo, Andy Sokol with Turbofox Photography CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. -- The last Block 4 variant of the Falcon 9 rocket was launched from Canaveral's Space Launch Complex 40 in Florida on June 29, 2018. The mission, a cargo run to the International Space Station under NASA's Commercial Resupply Services contract. The CRS-15 cargo Dragon spacecraft began its ascent toward the International Space Station at 5:42 a.m. EDT. Photos courtesy: Scott Schilke, Mike Deep, Mike Howard, Michael McCabe, Vikash Mahadeo, Andy Sokol with Turbofox Photography </s> SpaceX’s Dragon spacecraft began its next mission to the International Space Station Friday, with launch aboard a flight-proven Falcon 9 rocket – the final Block 4 vehicle – from the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station. The mission, which will also use a previously-flown Dragon capsule, lifted off at 05:42 Eastern Daylight Time (09:42 UTC).



The second Dragon flight of 2018, the CRS-15 mission launched Friday is carrying 2,700 kilograms (5,900) of supplies, provisions and equipment to the space station. Dragon is one of two US cargo vehicles – along with Northrop Grumman’s Cygnus – that perform deliveries to the outpost under NASA’s Commercial Resupply Services (CRS) contracts.

Both Dragon and Cygnus were developed under NASA’s Commercial Orbital Transportation Services (COTS) program, aimed at maintaining the agency’s ability to get cargo to the International Space Station following the retirement of the Space Shuttle. The CRS contracts, which cover operational flights, were first awarded in 2008.

Dragon consists of a pressurized capsule and an unpressurized trunk section, with the trunk providing critical services such as power generation via its solar arrays, as well as space for externally-mounted cargo. Dragon’s capsule is designed to be recovered at the end of a mission and can be refurbished for subsequent missions, while the trunk burns up on reentry.

Other than Russia’s manned Soyuz spacecraft, Dragon is the only spacecraft currently capable of returning cargo to Earth from the space station.

SpaceX was originally awarded twelve resupply missions for Dragon, with this being extended to 15 and later 20 in 2015. SpaceX has also been awarded a contract under the second phase of Commercial Resupply Services, CRS2, for six cargo missions with its next-generation Dragon 2 spacecraft.

Orbital ATK – now Northrop Grumman Innovation Systems – and Sierra Nevada Corporation were also awarded cargo missions for their Cygnus and Dream Chaser spacecraft respectively.

Friday’s launch began Dragon’s seventeenth flight, which will use spacecraft C111. This capsule already has one round trip to the ISS under its belt – having performed the CRS-9 mission in 2016.

Lifting off from Cape Canaveral in mid-July, CRS-9 saw Dragon spend thirty-six days berthed at the space station’s Harmony module before returning to Earth in late August. CRS-9 ended with the capsule splashing down in the Pacific Ocean off the west coast of Mexico.

It is the fourth time a previously-flown Dragon spacecraft has been used for a CRS mission. SpaceX intends to use refurbished spacecraft for its remaining Phase 1 CRS contracts, which has allowed the company to cease production in favor of the Dragon 2 vehicle that will support future manned and unmanned missions to the station.

The cargo aboard CRS-15 includes 205 kilograms (452 lb) of provisions for the crew, 178 kilograms (392 lb) of hardware for the US orbital segment of the outpost, 12 kilograms (26 lb) of hardware for the Russian part of the station, 21 kilograms (46 lb) of computer equipment and 63 kilograms (139 lb) of hardware to support future spacewalks.

There are 1,233 kilograms (2,718 lb) of scientific experiments and equipment aboard Dragon. One experiment is Chemical Gardens. These are inorganic silicon-based structures that form from the interaction of metal salts and silicate anions. The complex structures that grow can resemble plants, and the goal of growing chemical gardens aboard the space station is to see how they develop in microgravity conditions, without the effect of Earth’s gravity.

The BCAT-CS experiment will study cohesive and adhesive forces in sediments that are being transported aboard Dragon. These forces can cause particles to cluster together, but as they are much weaker than gravity they are hard to measure in laboratories on Earth. BCAT-CS will study quartz and clay sediments in microgravity, providing experimental results that can be used to validate existing scientific models of the forces.

Rodent Research 7 will study the effects of microgravity on microorganisms that live in the gastrointestinal tract, allowing for a better understanding of how to ensure the health of astronauts engaged in long-duration missions and to aid research into related conditions on Earth.

Angiex Cancer Therapy will test a new drug that has proven effective against cancer in microgravity conditions, where certain cultures of cells have been shown to exhibit similar properties to those in living organisms. The experiment will validate whether microgravity conditions can be used to model the performance of the drug within an organism, helping to develop new techniques for testing future drugs.

The European Space Agency’s Crew Interactive Mobile Companion (CIMON) will employ artificial intelligence (AI) to support astronauts aboard the station. Enclosed within a 3D-printed shell, CIMON will be able to maneuver autonomously, using onboard fans to control its flight in microgravity. The unit will be able to hover at eye level with the astronauts, with a screen displaying its face.

CIMON incorporates ultrasonic sensors for collision detection and an array of cameras and microphones that will help it in interactions with the crew and movements around the station.

CIMON’s AI is based around IBM’s Watson system, which can run locally aboard the unit or be downlinked for cloud processing when the space station is in range of NASA’s Tracking and Data Relay Satellite System (TDRSS). The mobile companion is designed to interact with the crew, assisting with experiments and operations through a voice interface that allows the astronauts to keep their hands free for other tasks.

This will allow them to ask for instructions and run through checklists. CIMON can also be used as a floating camera platform, to provide early warning of problems aboard the station and to monitor the psychological condition of its human crewmates.

CIMON’s interactions with the crew are intended to be natural, with the AI able to display emotions and appear to nod when processing its response to a question. Astronaut Alexander Gerst, currently aboard the ISS, contributed to the design of CIMON helping to pick out a face and voice to aid bonding with the crew.

Gerst will perform three experiments to test out CIMON during his time aboard the space station, including growing crystals, solving a Rubik’s Cube and a medical experiment. The ESA project – which is led by the German Aerospace Centre (DLR) – is seen as a precursor to the inclusion of AI assistants on future long-duration deep space missions.

NASA’s Ecosystem Spaceborne Thermal Radiometer Experiment (ECOSTRESS) is an ecological research payload that will be mounted outside the space station to monitor the temperature of plant life on Earth’s surface. The experiment will help to study how the planet’s ecosystems respond to the amount of water available and the resultant impact on the carbon cycle. ECOSTRESS will also be used to evaluate how monitoring water consumption and forecasting drought conditions can help protect agriculture.

ECOSTRESS uses the Prototype HyspIRI Thermal Infrared Radiometer (PHyTIR), a prototype instrument developed as a technology risk reduction exercise for a future mission named HyspIRI. PHyTIR contains a shortwave infrared pushbroom spectrometer and a whiskbroom thermal infrared multispectral imager. Operating in six spectral bands, PHyTIR will provide a resolution of up to 38 meters (125 feet). The 490-kilogram (1,080 lb) instrument draws 516 watts of power from the space station and will be mounted on the exposed facility of the Japanese Kibo module.

Dragon’s Trunk is also transporting a replacement Latching End Effector (LEE) for the space station’s CanadArm2 robotic arm. The robotic arm has two end effectors, one at each end of the arm, which allow it to move between different base points around the outside of the space station and to grapple other hardware – including Dragon, Cygnus and Kounotori spacecraft.

After performance issues related to their age, both LEEs were replaced during spacewalks late last year and early this. The new end effector, which was built as a ground spare, will be stored outside the station ready to be installed if needed.

The Latching End Effector that was removed during last October’s spacewalk has been brought aboard the space station. This will be packaged up and returned to Earth within Dragon’s pressurized capsule, allowing it to be refurbished and become the new ground spare.

Six CubeSats are aboard Friday’s launch. Carried aboard Dragon as pressurized cargo, these will be released from the space station at a future date. These miniaturized satellites include Biarri-Squad, a constellation of three CubeSats that will be used by the multinational Biarri project to study potential military applications for constellations of small spacecraft. A partnership between the United States, United Kingdom, Australia and Canada, Biarri-Squad uses three-unit CubeSat buses built by Boeing under the US National Reconnaissance Office’s Colony-2 program.

Building on the flight of Biarri-Point, a risk-reduction satellite that was deployed from the ISS last May, Biarri-Squad will use L1 GPS receivers and laser ranging to make precise measurements of the satellites’ relative positions. Australia’s Electro-Optic Systems (EOS) will perform the laser ranging experiments – relying upon retroreflectors aboard each CubeSat.

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The other three CubeSats aboard Dragon for Friday’s launch form part of the Japanese-led multinational Birds-2 project, consisting of small satellites with Earth imaging, radio and technology demonstration payloads. The original Birds constellation, consisting of five satellites, was previously deployed from the International Space Station early last July after launching aboard Dragon’s CRS-11 mission the previous month.

Each Bird satellite is a single-unit CubeSat. Built by Japan’s Kyushu Institute of Technology (KIT), in partnership with other universities and organizations around the world, the satellites will return images of the Earth, be used by amateur radio enthusiasts and test new microcontroller systems in orbit. Birds-2 consists of spacecraft built in partnership with universities in Bhutan, the Philippines and Malaysia.

The Bhutan-1 CubeSat, also known as Bird BTN, will be the Kingdom of Bhutan’s first satellite. Maya-1, or Bird PHL, was constructed for the University of the Philippines Diliman and will be the first Filipino CubeSat in orbit – although the country has previously operated larger satellites. Malaysia’s contribution is the Universiti Teknologi MARA Sat 1 (UiTMSAT-1) – or Bird MYS – which was built in conjunction with the Shah Alam-based MARA University of Technology.

SpaceX launched Dragon on its way to the space station via a Falcon 9 rocket. First flown in June 2010, Falcon 9 is the only rocket currently flying that is – in part – reusable. Falcon 9’s first stage is designed to be able to make a powered landing after boosting the rocket’s second stage and payload on their way towards orbit, allowing the stage to be refurbished and reflown on subsequent missions.

The Falcon 9 design has undergone several revisions since the type’s introduction, including the v1.1 and v1.2 configurations that debuted in 2013 and 2015 and incremental block upgrades within each of these configurations. Following the first flight of the Block 5 Falcon 9 v1.2 last month, intended to be the definitive version of the rocket, SpaceX is phasing out their remaining hardware from previous generations.

While SpaceX expects the Block 5 first stages to be capable of many flights, earlier versions have been used for a maximum of two launches. The first stage for Friday’s launch is Core 1045.2, a Block 4 first stage that will be making its second and final flight. Core 1045 was previously used in the launch of NASA’s Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) on 18 April – making its second flight, just seventy-two days later, the fastest turnaround to date for a recovered first stage.

Because the first stage cannot be used for any further launches, SpaceX did not attempt to recover it following Friday’s launch. Although SpaceX does have one remaining Block 4 first stage – Core 1042 which was used last October to deploy Koreasat 5A – this is not expected to fly again making the CRS-15 launch the last to use a Block 4 vehicle, or any version of Falcon 9 other than the Block 5.

Falcon lifted off from Space Launch Complex 40 (SLC-40) at the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station. This launch pad – which previously supported Titan III and Titan IV rockets – was leased by SpaceX in 2007 and was used for all East Coast Falcon 9 missions until it was damaged in a pre-launch accident in September 2016.

While SLC-40 was repaired, SpaceX performed launches from Launch Complex 39A at the Kennedy Space Center – which had already been undergoing conversion for Falcon 9 at the time of the accident – with SLC-40 returning to service last December.

Falcon is assembled horizontally in a hangar close to the launch pad. Once the first and second stages have been integrated the rocket is rolled out for a static fire – giving the first stage engines a short test run to shake down any potential issues with the vehicle.

The static fire for Friday’s mission was performed last Saturday, after which Falcon returned to the hangar to allow the Dragon spacecraft to be fitted to the top of the stack. Falcon was rolled back out to the launch pad – this time with Dragon – on Thursday and following the addition of late-load payloads to the Dragon capsule, the rocket was raised to the vertical position.

Fuelling of the Falcon 9 takes place in the last seventy minutes of the countdown. Loading of RP-1 propellant – a refined petroleum commonly used in rockets – begins at the T-70-minute mark in the countdown while oxidizer – supercooled liquid oxygen – is pumped into the rocket’s tanks from the thirty-five-minute mark onwards.

Friday’s launch sequence began with ignition of the Falcon’s nine Merlin-1D first-stage engines about three seconds ahead of the planned liftoff. The three-second holddown gives the engines enough time to build up to full thrust while the rocket’s onboard computers can verify their performance is nominal and abort the launch if the engines are not healthy.

Once Falcon 9 lifted off, the rocket climbed away from SLC-40 before maneuvering to the required trajectory to put Dragon on course for the International Space Station. Heading to the northeast over the Atlantic Ocean, Falcon passed through the area of maximum dynamic pressure – Max-Q – seventy-nine seconds into flight.

The first stage, Core 1045.2, powered Falcon’s ascent for the first two minutes and 45 seconds of the mission. Since the core was not going to be recovered, it did not need to save propellant for the entry and landing burns so can burn for longer than on missions with a landing attempt. This reduces the amount of work the second stage has to do to reach orbit.

The first stage shutdown event is designated main engine cutoff (MECO). Three seconds later, the spent first stage was jettisoned and allowed to fall back to Earth. Falcon’s second stage ignited its single Merlin Vacuum (MVac) engine eight seconds after stage separation.

For Friday’s mission the second stage only needed to make one burn to place Dragon into its planned deployment orbit, with this burn lasting five minutes and 35 seconds. Dragon separated from Falcon 9 one minute after the end of the second stage burn, at nine minutes and 31 seconds mission elapsed time.

After separation, Dragon will make a series of burns to set up its rendezvous with the International Space Station. Arrival is expected at around 11:00 UTC on 2 July – when the spacecraft will be grappled by the CanadArm2 robotic arm and berthed at the nadir – Earth-facing – port of the Harmony module. Dragon will remain at the space station for one month before it is unberthed and released to begin the journey back to Earth.

Friday’s launch was the fifty-seventh flight of SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket and its eleventh mission of 2018. The next Falcon 9 launch is currently slated to be from Vandenberg Air Force Base on 20 July, with a payload of ten Iridium-NEXT communications satellites. Another launch from Cape Canaveral with the Telstar 19V satellite is currently scheduled for the next day. Dragon’s next CRS mission, CRS-16, is targeting a launch in mid-November. </s> CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) — A SpaceX rocket that flew just two months ago with a NASA satellite roared back into action Friday, launching fresh space supplies for the International Space Station.

The used Falcon rocket blasted off before dawn, hauling nearly 6,000 pounds of cargo, including the first robot with artificial intelligence bound for space, genetically identical mice, or mousetronauts, and super-caffeinated coffee for the crew of the International Space Station.

The shipment — packed into a Dragon capsule that’s also recycled — should reach the station Monday.

It was an especially gorgeous launch, delighting spectators as the rocket plume expanded in the clear night sky like a giant halo.

This marked SpaceX’s fastest reflight of a booster. The same first-stage booster launched the planet-hunting Tess satellite in April. The capsule, meanwhile, flew in 2016.

Aiming to lower launch costs by reusing rockets, SpaceX did not retrieve the booster for another flight and, instead, ditched it in the Atlantic. The company is switching to a new and improved line of boosters.

The space station and its six inhabitants were sailing 250 miles above the South Pacific when the Falcon 9 took off.

The Dragon will deliver 20 brown female mice, half of them genetically identical from one strain or family, and the other half identical from another family. Northwestern University researchers want to study the bacteria in the animals’ guts and compare them to their identical sisters on the ground. They did the same with Scott and Mark Kelly, NASA’s former identical twin astronauts, during Scott’s yearlong space station mission a few years ago.

Sixty packets of Death Wish Coffee from New York state also are going up. A former astronaut helped arrange the java delivery for the space station’s Serena Aunon-Chancellor, a coffee lover.

And then there’s the AI robot Cimon, pronounced Simon, intended for German astronaut Alexander Gerst. Slightly bigger than a basketball, the round, 3D-printed German Space Agency robot will assist Gerst with science experiments. IBM provided the AI brain. Cimon will remain indefinitely on the orbiting lab, continually getting updated via IBM’s Cloud.

Cimon stands for Crew Interactive Mobile Companion. The name also refers to the genius doctor in the science fiction tale “Captain Future.” </s> IMB and Airbus are sending an AI robot named CIMON to the International Space Station, to help out the astronauts with their science experiments and keep them company on their long missions away from home.

From now on, the astronauts on board the International Space Station (ISS) will have a new addition to the merry group living and working some 250 miles (400 kilometers) away from our planet.

That’s because IBM is sending an AI robot to assist the ISS crew in their scientific endeavors and also to keep them company, reports FOX News.

Named CIMON (Crew Interactive Mobile Companion), the AI robot is traveling to its new home in space later today and will be shipped off to the ISS on SpaceX’s 15th resupply mission (CRS-15) launching on June 29 from Cape Canaveral.

According to Spaceflight Now, SpaceX is slated to send nearly 6,000 pounds (about 2,700 kilograms) of supplies and science gear to the ISS later today, making another commercial delivery with the same Dragon cargo capsule that made a trip to the space station in July 2016.

The spacecraft will be blasting off from Complex 40 launch pad at 5:42 a.m. EDT (09:42 GMT), atop the SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket that launched NASA’s TESS planet-hunting satellite a mere two months ago.

As NASA points out, the CIMON project, developed by IBM and Airbus for the European Space Agency (ESA) and the German Aerospace Center (DLR), “explores the use of AI as a way to mitigate crew stress and workload during long-term spaceflight.”

The Verge describes CIMON as something that resembles “a volleyball with a computer screen on one side,” while FOX News has likened it to HAL-9000 from 2001: A Space Odyssey movie.

But IBM’s Matthias Biniok points out that the 11-pound (five kilograms) AI robot is actually inspired by a character from the Captain Future comic book dating back to the 1940s and early 1950s.

“CIMON is similar to Professor Simon [a character that trained Captain Future] and that became the base for CIMON, a TV show from years ago,” said Biniok, who led the development of CIMON’s artificial intelligence technology at IBM Watson.

So, what does CIMON do? Well, Airbus explains it best.

In a recent news release, the German space company states that this is the first European project of its kind, revealing that CIMON is “a kind of flying brain” tasked with assisting the ISS crew and with helping to “increase efficiency” by making their job easier.

But there’s more to CIMON than just doing science work on board Earth’s orbiting lab. The floating AI robot, which is built to move around the space station with a unique air propulsion system that uses 14 fans to suck and expel the air inside the ISS, is also there to offer moral support.

The ball-shaped robot has microphones and cameras that allow it to interact with the astronauts, who can talk to CIMON about whatever’s on their mind. The robot also has a digital “mouth” and is designed to “imitate a human,” being able to express emotions and even offer compassion (as seen in the demonstration video below), says Biniok.

Once aboard the ISS, the AI robot will be first tested by German astronaut Alexander Gerst, who has already trained with CIMON before heading to the space station in early June. But while the floating bot is programed to recognize Gerst’s face and voice, it can also interact with everyone who calls out its name and can follow the astronauts around engaging in small talk.

Another feature of the AI robot is that it can act as a flying webcam, which keeps all the recorded data secure and private, as well as an “early warning system” that points out possible technical problems, reveals Biniok.

“In short, CIMON will be the first AI-based mission and flight assistance system,” said Airbus’ Manfred Jaumann, who leads the company’s Microgravity Payloads department. </s> A SpaceX rocket that flew just two months ago with a NASA satellite roared back into action Friday, launching the first orbiting robot with artificial intelligence and other station supplies.

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. — A SpaceX rocket that flew just two months ago with a NASA satellite roared back into action Friday, launching the first orbiting robot with artificial intelligence and other station supplies.

The used Falcon rocket blasted off before dawn, hauling nearly 6,000 pounds (2,700 kilograms) of cargo including the spherical AI bot named Cimon, genetically identical mice and super-caffeinated coffee for the crew of the International Space Station.

The shipment — packed into a Dragon capsule that’s also recycled — should reach the station Monday.

It was an especially gorgeous launch, delighting spectators as the rocket plume expanded in the clear night sky like a giant halo beneath a nearly full moon and a gleaming Mars.

SpaceX’s Jessica Jensen described the high-altitude plume, illuminated against the dark sky, as “the space jellyfish that’s coming down after us.”

“I was going to say breathtaking, but maybe awakening might be a better word,” said NASA’s space station program manager, Kirk Shireman.

This marked SpaceX’s fastest reflight of a booster. The same first-stage booster launched the planet-hunting Tess satellite in April. The capsule, meanwhile, flew in 2016.

Aiming to lower launch costs by reusing rockets, SpaceX did not retrieve the booster for another flight and ditched it in the Atlantic instead. The company is switching to a new and improved line of boosters.

The space station and its six inhabitants were sailing 250 miles (400 kilometers) above the South Pacific when the Falcon 9 took off.

The Dragon will deliver the robot Cimon, pronounced Simon. Slightly bigger than a basketball, the round, 3D-printed German Space Agency robot will assist German astronaut Alexander Gerst with science experiments. IBM provided the AI brain. Cimon will remain indefinitely on the orbiting lab.

Cimon stands for Crew Interactive Mobile Companion. The name also refers to the genius doctor in the science fiction tale “Captain Future.”

Also on board are two sets of genetically identical brown female mice, or 20 mousetronauts altogether. Northwestern University researchers want to study the bacteria in the animals’ guts and compare them to their identical sisters on the ground. They did the same with former NASA astronauts and identical twins Scott and Mark Kelly, during Scott’s yearlong space station mission a few years ago.

Groceries include ice cream bars, fresh blueberries from Texas, home to Mission Control, and 60 freeze-dried packets of Death Wish Coffee from New York state. A former NASA astronaut helped arrange the java delivery for the space station’s Serena Aunon-Chancellor, a coffee lover.

“We like to keep our astronauts super-caffeinated because they work harder then,” Shireman joked after liftoff.

New food — especially treats — is “a huge psychological benefit” when you’re stuck with a space menu that repeats every eight or nine days, Shireman said. “The crew’s going to be opening up and eating blueberries, drinking coffee and eating ice cream, I’m sure, before you know it.” </s> SpaceX has successfully launched its 20th rocket of the year, a mission taking supplies to the International Space Station (ISS), but the landing wasn't quite as successful.

Their Falcon 9 rocket lifted off from Cape Canaveral’s Space Launch Complex 40 in Florida at 1.16pm Eastern time (6.16pm UTC) today, carrying the CRS-16 Dragon spacecraft into orbit. This is a mission under contract with NASA, as part of their Commercial Resupply Services (CRS) program.

SpaceX also attempted to land the first stage booster of the rocket – the first in a new Block 5 class – back on Earth about eight minutes after launching at Landing Zone 1 in Cape Canaveral. However, the landing appears to have experienced some problems, with the rocket instead hitting the ocean rather than landing on the ground.

Video footage from just before the landing attempt showed the first stage spinning out of control, with one of its grid fins that it uses to steer itself seemingly out of position. SpaceX later confirmed the booster had performed a "water landing", rather than making it to the landing pad.

"Grid fin hydraulic pump stalled, so Falcon landed just out to sea," CEO Elon Musk wrote on Twitter. "Appears to be undamaged & is transmitting data. Recovery ship dispatched."

The Falcon 9 rocket used on this mission had not been used before, but the Dragon spacecraft had. It had previously flown on the CRS-10 mission in February 2017. It will take the spacecraft several days to reach the ISS, due to arrive on Saturday December 8.

On board are 2,540 kilograms (5,600 pounds) of supplies, which includes 250 experiments. Among these are 40 mice as part of the Rodent Research-8 (RR-8) mission, along with food bars for the mice. This had caused the flight to be delayed from its initial planned launch yesterday, December 4, when their food became mouldy and NASA had to fly some replacements in.

These mice will live on the station for between 30 and 60 days. Sadly after that they’ll be euthanized, so that their tissue samples can be studied to see how their muscles have coped with living in the microgravity environment of the ISS.

As mentioned this was SpaceX’s 20th launch of the year, and the 19th launch of a Falcon 9 rocket in 2018 – the other was the Falcon Heavy launch on February 6. This is the most launches SpaceX has ever completed in a single year, with their previous record of 18 coming in 2017.

This week also marked the eighth anniversary of SpaceX’s first Dragon flight for NASA, which launched on December 8, 2010, with this being the 16th. SpaceX is contracted in total for 26 missions to the ISS, and next year they are set to begin not just crewed flights, but human flights too.

The number of paylaods on board Dragon is the largest number of payloads ever taken to the ISS in a single launch. And it’s been a good week for multiple-payload fans, because just two days ago on December 3, SpaceX launched the SSO-A mission with a whopping 64 different satellites on board.

Dragon will remain on the ISS after about five weeks, when it will depart the station, re-enter our atmosphere, and splash down in the Pacific Ocean. At the moment, this is the only cargo spacecraft that can return experiments and research from the ISS. </s> SpaceX’s CRS-11 launch on Saturday was a success, bringing a Dragon spacecraft loaded down with nearly 6,000 lbs of supplies and research equipment on board to orbit. The twist was that SpaceX already sent this Dragon capsule up to resupply the International Space Station once before – back in September 2014, when it carried cargo to the ISS prior to being recovered and refurbished post-mission.

The successful relaunch of a recycled Dragon is another historic milestone for SpaceX, which is aiming to reuse various parts of its launch and spacecraft equipment in order to help lower the cost of getting stuff to space. This is key to its aim of making launching a lucrative and profitable business, and also to it achieving its goal of flying missions, including crewed operations, to Mars.

After SpaceX’s Falcon 9 (not a reused one, this time) delivered the Dragon to orbit, it decoupled from the craft about 10 minutes after the original liftoff, and then deployed its solar wings to harvest energy for the rest of its trip to the ISS.

The Dragon will attempt to dock with the ISS around 36 hours from launch, when space station crew will attempt to capture the craft using the facility’s 57.7-foot Canadian-made robotic arm. If this Dragon completes the rest of its mission as planned, it’ll be recovered, refurbished and hopefully reused in a future mission

SpaceX is working on Dragon 2, a capsule designed to bring crew to and from the ISS, and hopes to run test flights with astronauts on board beginning next year.

This mission included an attempt to recover the used Falcon 9 first stage, which was a success. The landing was pretty text-book from all appearances, with the rocket touching down without issue at SpaceX’s LZ-1 at Cape Canaveral Air Force base. </s> CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla — Clear weather and a Moonlit pre-dawn sky provided perfect conditions as SpaceX launched its final Block 4 Falcon 9 on its fifteenth cargo resupply mission to the International Space Station (ISS). The rocket lifted off at 5:42 a.m. EDT (9:42 GMT) from Space Launch Complex 40 (SLC-40).

If everything continues to go as it is planned, the CRS-15 Dragon spacecraft should deliver an estimated 5,900 pounds (2,676 kilograms) worth of supplies and equipment to low-Earth orbit (LEO), where it is scheduled to rendezvous with the ISS on July 2.

The mission, part of NASA’s Commercial Resupply Services (CRS) contract with SpaceX, saw the use of two flight-proven vehicles — the Falcon 9 rocket that launched NASA’s TESS spacecraft, and the Dragon capsule that was used for the CRS-9 mission in 2016. Only 10 weeks separated the TESS mission and the flight of CRS-15, highlighting how far SpaceX has come with their reusable technology.

Weather for today’s liftoff was predicted by the 45th Weather Squadron as having a 90 percent chance of favorable conditions, with only a slight concern for cumulus and anvil clouds.

Approximately three seconds prior to liftoff, the nine Merlin 1D engines ignited with a telltale green flash. The engines, which burn a mixture of liquid oxygen and a highly refined kerosene called RP-1, produce a combined 1.71 million pounds-force (7,600 kilonewtons) of sea-level thrust. This provided enough power to propel the rocket and the Dragon spacecraft off the pad. The vehicle cleared the tower shortly thereafter.

After gaining speed and altitude, the Falcon 9 began its gravity turn and assumed a northeasterly heading.

As the vehicle accelerated, the forces experienced by the rocket – atmospheric pressure combined with velocity, a condition known as maximum aerodynamic pressure (max Q) – reached their greatest at approximately 79 seconds into the flight.

The first stage’s nine Merlin 1D engines continued to power the vehicle for another 96 seconds, shutting down at 2 minutes and 45 seconds after it had left the launch pad far below. This was followed three seconds later by separation of the first and second stages.

Like most SpaceX launches carried out this year, the Falcon 9 rocket was deemed expendable and not reused. As such, the F9’s first stage was not recovered. Given this, there were no in-flight acrobatics from a returning booster orchestrating a series of flips and engine burns so that it could return safely for a ground landing or on an Autonomous Spaceport Drone Ship out in the Atlantic.

Shortly after stage separation, the second stage’s lone Merlin 1D-Vacuum (MVac) came to life. The vacuum-optimized engine – similar to the power plants on the first stage, but with a larger nozzle extension – continued to accelerate the stage and its payload with some 210,000 pounds-force (934 kilonewtons) of thrust.

The second stage continued accelerating the spacecraft and its cargo over the next 5 minutes and 35 seconds, with engine cutoff coming at 8 minutes and 31 seconds after liftoff. After a short coast phase, the Dragon spacecraft separated from the second stage and was flying freely, only nine and a half minutes after taking to the skies above SLC-40.

The first order of business for the Dragon is to deploy its twin solar panels to power the spacecraft and its systems. It will spend the next three days slowly raising its orbit as it rendezvous with the ISS, where it should be captured by the space station’s Canadarm2 robotic arm, which will be operated by NASA astronaut Ricky Arnold.

The CRS-15 mission marks SpaceX’s twelfth flight of 2018, with up to another sixteen on the launch manifest slated for the remainder of the year. The company’s next scheduled launch is the seventh Iridium NEXT mission, currently set for July 20, 2018.

SpaceX was awarded an estimated $1.6 billion to carry out 12 resupply missions to the orbiting lab in 2008. Three additional missions were added to the Phase 1 contract of this program in 2015.

Curt Godwin has been a fan of space exploration for as long as he can remember, keeping his eyes to the skies from an early age. Initially majoring in Nuclear Engineering, Curt later decided that computers would be a more interesting - and safer - career field. He's worked in education technology for more than 20 years, and has been published in industry and peer journals, and is a respected authority on wireless network engineering. Throughout this period of his life, he maintained his love for all things space and has written about his experiences at a variety of NASA events, both on his personal blog and as a freelance media representative. </s> Three days after successfully launching 10 communications satellites into orbit from the West Coast, Hawthorne-based SpaceX on Monday launched a cargo mission from the East Coast en route to the International Space Station.

The CRS-14 mission launched from Cape Canaveral at about 1:30 p.m. Pacific time.

SpaceX used a Dragon cargo-carrying spaceship for the mission — the same one it used during an April 2016 cargo flight to the space station. The Falcon 9 rocket that propelled the ship into space also was previously used, launching a space-station supply mission in August 2017.

Although SpaceX has made a habit of recovering its Falcon 9 rockets for reuse in future missions — reducing the cost of space flights by millions of dollars — the company did not attempt to recover the rocket from Monday’s launch.

The launch was the company’s seventh rocket flight this year and its 14th resupply launch to the space station since 2012 under a multibillion-dollar contract with NASA.

Included in the Dragon spaceship’s nearly three tons of cargo are several science experiments, including:
• An Atmosphere-Space Interactions Monitor, which will study severe thunderstorms and their impact on Earth’s atmosphere and climate.
• An experiment testing the effect of a no-gravity environment on the process of producing high-performance products from metal powders.

The spaceship is scheduled to arrive at the International Space Station on Wednesday. It will remain at the space station for about a month, before it returns to Earth with about 3,900 pounds of cargo, according to SpaceX.

SpaceX on Friday launched 10 Iridium communications satellites into orbit from Vandenberg Air Force Base. The satellites are part of what will ultimately be a 75-satellite array for Iridium’s “next-generation” communications system, which is expected to be in place this summer.
SpaceX successfully launches Commercial Resupply Services payload CRS-15 via a Falcon 9 rocket to dock with the International Space Station. The cargo includes CIMON, a head-shaped AI robot designed by the German Aerospace Center to assist crew onboard the ISS.