SpaceX's CRS-9 Mission Launches Tonight

It's launch day for a Dragon commercial resupply capsule to the International Space Station. More precisely, it is launch day in the U.S. in every time zone EXCEPT the one (Eastern Daylight Time) where the launch actually happens: Cape Canaveral on Florida's Space Coast.

Launch times that switch days depending on which U.S. time zone you are in can be confusing, so if you plan to watch live, here are the launch times by time zone and day for the continental U.S., as well as Central Europe and UTC:

12:45 a.m. Monday, July 18 EDT
11:45 p.m. Sunday, July 17 CDT
10:45 p.m. Sunday, July 17 MDT
9:45 p.m. Sunday, July 17 PDT

06:45, Monday, July 18 CEST
4:45 a.m., Monday, July 18 UTC 

This launch window is instantaneous. 

If the launch does not occur tonight at 12:45 a.m. EDT, July 18, there is another instantaneous backup window at 12:00 a.m. (midnight) EDT on July 20. That is mid-to-late evening this Tuesday, July 19, for most viewers in the continental U.S. in time zones other than Eastern (e.g., 9 p.m. PDT, July 19). This means 06:00 CEST on July 19 in Central Europe and 4:00 a.m., July 19 UTC.

SpaceX will host a live webcast at http://www.spacex.com/webcast.

The company will almost certainly also stream a technical webcast for those who are more interested in engineering details and telemetry than the webcast from SpaceX HQ. The link to the technical broadcast usually appears once the webcast goes live at the above link.

As with every SpaceX mission since last December, the private rocket company will attempt a landing tonight to recover the spent first stage of the Falcon 9 rocket. 

Earlier this year, SpaceX successfully landed spent rockets used in missions on land near Cape Canaveral (one time) and on an autonomous ocean-going barge three consecutive times, most recently on May 27, 2016, when the Thaicom-8 mission delivered a payload into geostationary transfer orbit. However, last month's barge landing attempt as part of the successful Eutelsat/ABS mission ended in a RUD - a rapid unscheduled disassembly at sea, in the words of Elon Musk. The spent rocket stage reached the barge, but disintegrated on touchdown.

SpaceX will attempt another land-based landing near Cape Canaveral tonight. The third of three burns, the landing burn, is scheduled to begin at 7 minutes, 38 seconds after liftoff. It is this landing burn that occurs closest to the ground, just before the rocket attempts to land.

The two prior burns, the boost back burn starts at 2 minutes, 42 seconds after liftoff, followed by the entry burn at 6 minutes and 31 seconds after liftoff.

Image credit: Space X

Graphic illustrating the stages of launch, landing and mission completion. Graphic is for barge landing, but stages are the same for a ground-based landing
(click to enlarge)

When the webcast begins, pay attention to the legend below the video that shows when to expect the different launch and landing milestones. Some of them are included in the graphic above. SpaceX has been very good about providing live footage not just of its mission launches, but its landing attempts as well. Night landings, though, pose visibility challenges. In case of a successful landing - or even an unsuccessful one - expect a brief camera whiteout as the brightness of the landing burn overloads the cameras for a few seconds before we will know if the rocket has landed upright.

Image Credit: SpaceX

Official Mission Patch for SpaceX's 9th Commercial Resupply (CRS) Mission to the International Space Station under contract with NASA

Image credit: SpaceX 

Dragon capsule atop SpaceX's flagship Falcon 9 rocket on the pad at Cape Canaveral awaiting launch to the ISS on July 18

Dual Success For SpaceX

It's been a weekend of amazing successes for SpaceX. The private space company delivered its eighth Dragon resupply capsule to the International Space Station and stuck an experimental landing of the spent Falcon 9 booster rocket on a drone ship in the Atlantic. SpaceX has previously tried landing the first stage of a Falcon 9 used in missions. Both times, the rocket made it to its target on the drone ship, but failed to land upright, resulting in RUD events (rapid unscheduled disassembly).

This tweet from early Sunday morning, April 10, shows Dragon safely docked to the ISS Harmony module, next to an Orbital Sciences' Cygnus cargo craft and a Soyuz crew capsule on the lower right. In total, six spacecraft are currently docked to the International Space Station.

SpaceX Dragon cargo ship, Orbital ATK’s Cygnus, and Soyuz crew capsule in this view from ISS https://t.co/uuY7qzZ0Ls pic.twitter.com/9qzTOiATDG

— Spaceflight Now (@SpaceflightNow) April 10, 2016

But let's go back to launch day, Friday, April 8, and take a look at all that SpaceX accomplished this weekend:

Image credit: SpaceX

Falcon 9 with its Dragon payload on the launch pad at Cape Canaveral

Image credit: SpaceX

Mission patch for SpaceX's eighth commercial resupply mission (CRS-8) to the International Space Station

If you look closely, you'll find the patch full of interesting details. For example, the eight stars in the design represent the eight missions to the ISS that SpaceX has flown so far, with one star dimmed out to symbolize last June's failed launch.

Image credit: SpaceX

Close-up of Dragon capsule atop Falcon 9, which stands over 200 feet (60 m) tall

Image credit: Space X

Graphic illustrating the stages of launch, landing and mission completion (click to enlarge)

The drone ship name in the above graphic is Just Read The Instructions. The ship on which Falcon 9 stuck its historic landing is Of Course I Still Love You.

The following trio of still pictures captured by SpaceX's chaser plane near the drone ship shows the landing's most breath-taking moments. This is the first time that SpaceX has successfully landed a rocket used in a mission on a drone ship at sea. The private space company previously succeeded at landing a Falcon 9 first stage on-shore.

Image credit: SpaceX

Image credit: SpaceX

Image credit: SpaceX

Whether Falcon 9's first stage lands on a drone ship or on shore after delivering a payload depends on several factors. Elon Musk explained some of them on Twitter.

@arstechnica Reasons for ocean landing are technical, not economic. Orbit requires extreme horizontal velocity. Getting to space needs none.

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) April 8, 2016

Following are two tweets from SpaceX with landing video clips that were posted to the company's twitter account within hours of the landing.

Onboard view of landing in high winds pic.twitter.com/FedRzjYYyQ

— SpaceX (@SpaceX) April 9, 2016

Landing from the chase plane pic.twitter.com/2Q5qCaPq9P

— SpaceX (@SpaceX) April 8, 2016

Here is SpaceX's 36-minute launch and landing live webcast. About 30 seconds in, a legend appears at the bottom that lists the consecutive events being covered. It is well worth the time to review the launch and what SpaceX labeled "experimental landing". While the landing is one of the most jaw-dropping and certainly the most historic aspect of the CRS-8 mission, a successful landing was not the primary mission objective. That was getting a Dragon resupply capsule, including its important science cargo, safely to the International Space Station. SpaceX succeeded on both counts, with several cherries on top.

The reactions from employees at SpaceX headquarters in Hawthorne, CA after the successful launch and landing on Friday say it all. Elon Musk and the team at SpaceX have mastered another crucial step towards routine usage of reusable rockets, drastically lowering the cost of reaching targets in orbit and beyond and making space more accessible than ever before. SpaceX plans to re-fly a used rocket within a few months.

Video credit: SpaceX

Live webcast from SpaceX's headquarters during Friday's successful launch to the ISS and landing on one of the company's drone ship.

Below is the Storify of my live tweets and conversations during Friday's pre-launch, launch and landing events, with some additional remarks for this blog post.

10 Reasons Why I Love Twitter #1: Tweeting Astronauts

As I’m squarely situated in the the middle-ish age range, Twitter usage among my friends, acquaintances and colleagues in my peer group seems pretty thin. When it does happen, I rarely see the enthusiasm and consistency that's in my daily tweet stream. So I often find myself explaining "why I do Twitter", "how I put up with the garbage on Twitter", "why Twitter is not a waste of my time", and so on. 

My response is to turn negative misconceptions around and explain why I enjoy Twitter and how it benefits me on many levels.

I have these conversations so frequently that I might as well write an explainer I can point to when questions from non-Twitter users come up in the future. 

Reason #1 is below.

#2 - #10 will be published in installments as I have time.

10 Reasons Why I Love Twitter

#1: Tweeting Astronauts ~ 

There are dozens, possibly well over a 100 astronauts active on Twitter. By "astronauts" I mean active or retired members of NASA and other astronaut corps (e.g., Roscomos, ESA, CSA, JAXA) who are in space, have been to space, or are training to go to space.

Yes, there are astronauts tweeting from the International Space Station, every day. Currently there is one space-based tweeter: Scott Kelly (@StationCDRKelly). There are three astronauts on the ISS at the moment; when there's the usual crew of six aboard, you can find two or three astronauts sending daily tweets from space.

You need only scroll through my Twitter timeline pictures (@ct_la) to see breathtaking vistas of our home planet and fascinating images of life on orbit at our human outpost in space.

Astronauts have been tweeting from the ISS since 2009. The myriad images of our fragile Earth have changed the mental representation I had of our planet. I love maps and my walls are full of them. Sometime around 2010 or so, I found myself looking at a physical map of the U.K. and said "Wait a minute. That is NOT what England really looks like!" By then I had seen dozens of images of Europe from space and become accustomed to the fact that in those images North is not always up, curvature of the Earth is an important marker and non-natural boundaries so common on conventional maps are non-existent. Now, when I think of, for example, Turkey, I don’t envision a map-like representation. Instead, I think of an image like this:

Image of western Turkey 
Tweeted by Samantha Cristoforetti (@Astro_Samantha) from the ISS on June 2, 2015 

It’s not easy to pick the one most awesome thing an astronaut has ever tweeted from space, but if I have to choose, I'll go with Canadian astronaut Chris Hadfield’s (@Cmdr_Hadfield) rendition of David Bowie’s "Space Oddity", performed in microgravity. 

If you have a different all-time-favorite tweet from space, please tweet it @ me or leave a comment. I might have missed something! 

Earth-bound astronauts also provide plenty of twitter entertainment, education and fun. One of my favorites is Apollo-era moon walker Buzz Aldrin (@TheRealBuzz), who travels widely to do outreach for his "Get Yo Ass To Mars" campaign and, of course, tweets about it.

Another favorite is retired NASA astronaut Clayton Anderson (@Astro_Clay) who is a prolific daily tweeter and widely appreciated for consistently engaging his followers. This is, in fact, such an awesome Twitter perk that I wrote a separate post about it.

Earth Photos From The ISS Are Full of Surprises

One reason I love twitter, tweeting and tweeps is that I learn so much simply by doing something I enjoy. Hardly a day goes by that I don't learn something new. Here is today's discovery.

This morning, Sam Cristoforetti @AstroSamantha, who is currently aboard the International Space Station, tweeted a picture of the Hawaiian Island O'ahu with Honolulu clearly visible.

MT @AstroSamantha: O'ahu island & Honolulu, in beautiful #Hawaii / L'isola di O'ahu con la città di Honolulu, Hawaii pic.twitter.com/6KbZC5C0LU
— Claudia Taake (@ct_la) December 28, 2014

I retweeted this to my own timeline without noticing the odd coloration of the ocean at the top and at the left side of the picture, most likely because I initially saw a small version of it on my phone. 

Shortly thereafter, Frank Benson @mfbenson1 brought up this excellent question:

@ct_la @cirquelar @AstroSamantha what's with all the mud/sediment in the water? Never seen it look like that...
— Frank Benson (@mfbenson1) December 28, 2014

I took a second look at the picture and suggested we might be looking at some very thin, low cloud cover, since mud or sediment don't make much sense, given local geography. Clouds were my best guess, but since I didn't know for sure I included Peter Caltner @PC0101 in the conversation, who is a veritable fount of useful and factual information about pictures of Earth taken from the International Space Station. Turns out Frank and I had both guessed wrong:

@ct_la @mfbenson1 @cirquelar @AstroSamantha That's sunglint, sunlight reflected directly into the camera lens. A purely optical effect.
— Peter Caltner (@PC0101) December 28, 2014

@ct_la @mfbenson1 @cirquelar @AstroSamantha Wave patterns in places may 'break' that reflection directly into the camera, so you have that
— Peter Caltner (@PC0101) December 28, 2014

@ct_la @mfbenson1 @cirquelar @AstroSamantha patch of blue sea in the pic. In an extreme case color photos can look like black/white pix.
— Peter Caltner (@PC0101) December 28, 2014

Peter then tweeted a photo taken from the ISS that shows an example of extreme sun glint, so much so that the brightness 'wipes out' the colors of the land.

Glint off San Remo, Italy, #ISS, Nov 2, 800-mm by @astro_reid @AstroSamantha @silvianalon @eugeniafessia @sweetgazer1 pic.twitter.com/C0RhVfyhTv
— Peter Caltner (@PC0101) November 13, 2014

He added that glint pictures can be extremely useful, since they show coastal inlets and river courses better than aerial views. The ISS orbits at ca. 220 mi (350 km) above Earth.

South-eastern USA in golden sun-glint, from #ISS, Dec 17, 180-mm @TinaMeany pic.twitter.com/c3MXrwEz9p
— Peter Caltner (@PC0101) December 25, 2013

Thanks, Peter, for this really cool lesson in orbital photography effects!

SpaceX's Jan. 10 CRS-5 Launch Includes Precision-Landing Upper Rocket Stage On Barge

Update - January 8: SpaceX's CRS-5 resupply mission to the ISS has been postponed to Saturday, January 10, 1:47 a.m. PST (10:47 CET) - a weekend night launch. I'm sure other West Coast night owls like myself will stay awake to watch and live tweet the launch, given the historic nature of this mission. NASA TV will provide live coverage, starting at 12:30 a.m. PST (9:30 CET). Details about this mission are below the Update sections.



Update - January 6: Today's launch attempt was scrubbed at the last minute due to a problem with an actuator assembly, a part of the rocket's second stage engine steering system. The next launch attempt is scheduled for Friday, January 9, at 2:09 a.m. PST (11:09 CET) - an almost reasonable time for us West Coast night owls. SpaceX is characteristically stingy with details; Elon Musk posted this tweet today:
 

Need to investigate the upper stage Z actuator. Was behaving strangely. Next launch attempt on Friday at 5am.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) January 6, 2015

Update - December 18: Due to issues with a static fire test this week, SpaceX has moved the launch date to January 6, 2015, at 3:18 a.m. PST (12:18 CET).





Delayed multiple times since September, SpaceX's cargo delivery to the International Space Station is scheduled for January 10, 1:47 a.m. PST (10:47 CET), launching a Dragon cargo capsule atop a Falcon 9 rocket from pad SLC-40 at Cape Canaveral. This mission will be the private space company's fifth cargo delivery to the ISS under NASA's Commercial Resupply Services contract. 

The mission is named CRS-5 and here is its patch. I like how the launch state of Florida is marked in a lighter blue color. Naturally, the traditional SpaceX clover leaf is there as well. What I like most about it is that Falcon 9 is practically bursting out of the confines of this beautiful patch, conveying anticipation, excitement and confidence in what's ahead. The Dragon capsule on the right has already found a way to escape its patch boundaries, but, hey, that lucky capsule is going to the International Space Station, so Dragon's impatience is quite understandable!


 


For SpaceX, CRS-5 is quite a bit more than another supply run to the ISS, as the company will further test re-usability functions and performance of its flagship Falcon 9 rocket. From its inception, SpaceX has aimed to make spaceflight more affordable and accessible. Reusable rocket stages are a crucial factor in the quest to develop rockets that are significantly cheaper to fly than their single-use counterparts. Notice the upside down V-shaped structures on the rocket in the patch - or, from a Trekkie's perspective, the Star Trek emblem-shaped structures affixed to this Falcon 9 stage. These are Falcon 9's landing legs for attempting a soft landing on a spaceport barge.

On a mission earlier this year, SpaceX began post-launch re-usability testing by guiding the Falcon 9's rocket stage to hover upright above the ocean for a few seconds before it tipped over sideways into the water. SpaceX uses a combination of landing legs, grid fins, retro rockets and stabilizing technologies, enabling Falcon 9's upper stage to perform a precision soft landing on water and eventually on land.

This time, Falcon 9's upper stage is expected to land on an autonomous spaceport drone ship. On twitter, SpaceX CEO Elon Musk gave us a glimpse of what to expect on January 10 - a historic milestone never before achieved: precisely land and recover a rocket that is intact and reusable, without the need to fish it out of the water.

Autonomous spaceport drone ship. Thrusters repurposed from deep sea oil rigs hold position within 3m even in a storm. pic.twitter.com/wJFOnGdt9w
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) November 22, 2014

Testing operation of hypersonic grid fins (x-wing config) going on next flight pic.twitter.com/O1tMSIXxsT
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) November 22, 2014

Swan Dive: Antares With Cygnus Payload Explodes

The launch date for Orbital Sciences' third cargo delivery to the International Space Station was set originally for October 27 from NASA Wallops in Virginia. When the launch was scrubbed at the last minute due to a boat that had strayed into the restricted zone, the twittersphere was not amused. Jokes were cracked, serious questions were asked and much debate went on over whether or not a launch should be scrubbed because one fishing boat had gotten a little bit closer to the launch pad than was deemed safe. The launch date was rescheduled to October 28, at 6:22 pm.
 
Due to the delay I was able to watch the launch live, including the jaw-dropping explosion, after the rocket appeared to sustain a first-stage engine failure a few seconds after liftoff, plunging back to the pad with almost all of its fuel. Twitter users have commented widely on the first video below, saying that the pieces seen flying away from the blast are most likely chunks of solid fuel from the rocket's upper stages. 

Interestingly, during the live coverage (not in the above video), I spotted someone running, crouched down low, between the camera and the launch pad, about 60 seconds before liftoff. It startled me enough to say to my screen: "What are you still doing there? Get out of there!" Later, Orbital Sciences announced that all personnel was accounted for. Still, other twitter users saw the person in the live stream, too. Speculation continues on who that was and if the person was in danger.


 Below is a video of the explosion taken from an airplane:    

 

   

A view of the blast from across the water appeared on twitter soon after the launch failure:

WHOA RT @thestormreport: PHOTO: #Antares after the explosion in Wallops Island, Virginia. Photo via @EddieInTheYard. pic.twitter.com/FbCnTHTvI8 — Claudia Totenkopf (@ct_la) October 28, 2014

 
Antares carried a Cygnus ("the swan") capsule with supplies, science and satellite payloads destined for the ISS. Given the space station's planning cycles that include stockpiling supplies for astronauts 4-6 months in advance, neither the astronauts nor the station are at risk due to this launch failure. Moreover, another scheduled ISS cargo delivery on a Proton rocket smoothly launched from Baikonur to the ISS later in the day. It will be weeks, if not months, before we know the exact cause for yesterday's failure. 

It seems certain, though, that the investigation will focus on the two Russian-built NK-33 engines that power Antares' first stage. These are engines built and stockpiled in Russia during the space race decades, and acquired by Aerojet for use in launches from the U.S.    

A summary on the NK-33 engine is here, with a more detailed and technical article here.  A quote from the first article: "If you want to get an engine like this, you can't find it in the United States." Originally made to express confidence in the NK-33, it's a statement that may come back to haunt Orbital Sciences and the company's decision to use Russian engines built decades ago.  

Comparisons to SpaceX are inevitable: The company is another private supplier of ISS cargo launches. It uses modern American-built engines and rockets assembled all in one place. True, SpaceX has less than 15 launches total to its name. Yet the company also saw an engine failure on one of its initial deliveries to the ISS. After the "anomaly", Falcon 9 continued on its way and made the delivery as planned. Falcon 9s are built with multiple redundant systems, including nine first-stage Merlin engines designed to save the mission, or at least the rocket and payload, should a launch fail. In addition, SpaceX is flying its next ISS cargo delivery mission on December 9 from Cape Canaveral. Part of that mission includes an attempted water landing on a floating platform in the ocean, paving the way towards making re-usability a reality. 
 

Ocean Blue Hair = Everyday Space Outreach

Most of us working in space outreach think of it as organized activities, events, blogs, presentations or a social media endeavor. Yet it doesn't stop there - space outreach can be done anytime, anywhere, by design or by serendipity. I can attest to that:

I have naturally silver hair. Not premature greying, but actual shiny silver - similar to the kind of naturally blonde hair color that just *shines*. If you've spent some time in Northern Europe, where I was born, you'll know both colors aren't uncommon there. In my family it's a maternal genetic trait. My grandmother had it, my mom had it and they both hated it, coloring their hair religiously, lest someone suspect they are "going old and grey" too soon. When the silver started taking over my brown-ish childhood tresses by age 20, I, of course, felt the same way. I went brown all my life - until last year, when I got seriously tired of it and wanted a new look. 

The currently fashionable non-standard colors - blue, red, purple and more - require bleaching out one's natural color if it is dark, often multiple times, before the new color shows up blue, red or purple. Plus application of products to minimize the bleaching damage and add that shine. I quickly realized - Hey! I have the *perfect* natural hair to apply those non-traditional colors, with no bleaching mess or damage at all. All I need to do is let my hair keep growing out for a partial electric blue look. One that can be easily changed back to boring brown should professional responsibilities require it. 

I chose electric/sky blue because it represents the heavens, ascent to space and the color of Earth's oceans as seen from space. So I named my color "Earth-from-Space-Blue". 

This is my current color:

I've been getting a lot of comments, compliments and questions about this look, yet none as awesome as what happened at my local post office the other day. A kid of about 9 or 10 was selling candy by the entrance; I saw him checking me out as I locked up my bike. I made eye contact, and he said:

"Wow, I really love your hair. What's the color?"

"It's called "Splat Blue Envy" and you can buy it at any pharmacy."

"Yes, but how do you do it?"

"Well, I can do it without bleaching because I have naturally silver hair. As it grows out, I just paint it blue. I named the color Earth-from-Space Blue, because it's so cool."

Kid gives me a quizzical look: "What does *that* mean?"

I reply: "Do you know that there is a Space Station circling the Earth every 90 minutes? Astronauts have been living on it for 10 years now, taking 1000s of photos of our planet, whenever they are not busy doing amazing science in zero gravity. The cool thing is that many astronauts are on twitter and tweet their photos from space, showing different parts of Earth in real time. That's how I know what oceans from space look like."

Kid now gives me major side-eye, probably thinking I'm messing with him. I'm guessing he had never heard anything about the ISS, nor seen any of the photos. I could guess what he was thinking: "Oh yeah? I'm gonna go google that shyt, you know!"

I smiled at him and thanked him for the compliment. Biking away, I thought: "I hope you do, kid. I hope you do."

A Time & Space Oddity: 1969 Meets 2013

In a little over an hour, International Space Station Commander Chris Hadfield of the Canadian Space Agency will undock from the station inside a Russian Soyuz capsule and return to Earth with two of his fellow ISS residents, landing on the Kazahk steppe at 7:30 pm PDT. 

During his 5-month stay as Station Commander on the orbital outpost, Chris Hadfield has given Earth-bound humans unprecedented inside looks at station life and a daily stream of breathtaking photographs from orbit, via twitter, youtube, video chats and other social media channels.

Commander Hadfield is a musician, and on May 12, 2013 he published the first music video from space, shot on the International Space Station. It is a cover of David Bowie's "Space Oddity" and I am not ashamed to admit that it brought tears to my eyes. As of this writing, the video has already been viewed 1.3 million times.

And here, from the Summer of Love Era and the year that saw the first human walk on the moon, is the original music video for "Space Oddity" featuring a 22-year-old David Bowie who had just written the song.     

 

I have always considered David Bowie an artist who symbolizes the rise of the space age, especially once I understood that "Space Oddity" pays homage to legendary filmmaker Stanley Kubrick's 1968 rendition on the big screen of Arthur C. Clarke's novel "2001 - A Space Odyssey". Bowie's visionary artistic genius has now come full circle. Amplified by Chris Hadfield's unique creativity from the ISS, "Space Oddity" has transformed from metaphor into reality as more and more people are becoming aware, viral-video-style, that humans stand on the threshold of claiming their future among the stars. Pop culture doesn't get any better than this.

 

Grasshopper and SpaceX Showcase the Future

Multiple successful launches and exciting announcements in recent days have made for an eventful week: Mars One, a private company based in The Netherlands, announced its astronaut selection process for one-way trips to Mars to establish a permanent colony, starting in 2023. Virginia-based private space company Orbital Sciences successfully completed the maiden flight of its Antares rocket. A Russian Soyuz launched a resupply capsule to the ISS. A second Soyuz delivered a menagerie of animals into orbit to conduct research on the long-term effects of microgravity.

Still, I must present the week's Award for Most Jaw-Dropping Launch (and Landing!) Footage to SpaceX. The private company's Grasshopper vehicle underwent it's fifth test last week:

The Grasshopper rocket is a remarkable piece of engineering: A Vertical Takeoff Vertical Landing (VTVL) vehicle designed to test the technologies involved in returning rockets to Earth intact instead of having them burn up in the atmosphere. Rapid re-usability means cost reduction - an important objective for the private company. Essentially, SpaceX is designing rocket technology that includes a return trip to the launch pad for a vertical landing. The rocket is 106 ft (32 m) tall, with a tank height of 85 ft (26 m).  

SpaceX has been testing the Grasshopper at its McGregor, TX rocket development facility since 2012 with a series of test flights that have achieved substantial successive increases in altitude:    

Sep 2012: 8 ft (2.5 m)    
Nov 2012: 18 ft (5.5 m)    
Dec 2012: 131 ft (40 m)    
Mar 2013: 263 ft (80 m)    
Apr 2013: 820 ft (250 m) - the leap shown in the video above.    

Grasshopper's components are a Falcon 9 rocket first stage tank with a Merlin 1C engine that generates a maximum thrust of 122,000 pounds. The rocket sits on four steel and aluminum landing legs with hydraulic dampers, and a steel support structure. Nitrogen- or helium-filled carbon overwrapped pressure vessels (COPVs) are attached to the support structure. Propellants used in the Grasshopper VTVL vehicle include a refined kerosene fuel and liquid oxygen as the oxidizer. Grasshopper uses closed loop thrust vector and throttle control for landings.    

One of the most amazing moments in the above launch and landing video comes when Grasshopper hovers at its maximum altitude, buffeted by winds strong enough to bend the rocket flames at a significant angle while Grasshopper itself holds steady against the wind, except for one slight wobble. During a week that also showcased ambitious plans for establishing the first Mars colony I can only conclude: The future really is HERE!!  

 

e Grasshopper RLV consists of a Falcon 9 Stage 1 tank, a Merlin-1D engine, four steel landing legs, and a steel support structure. Carbon overwrapped pressure vessels (COPVs), which are filled with either nitrogen or helium, are attached to the support structure. The Merlin-1D engine has a maximum thrust of 122,000 pounds. The overall height of the Grasshopper RLV is 106 feet, and the tank height is 85 feet. The propellants used in the Grasshopper RLV include a highly refined kerosene fuel, called RP-1, and liquid oxygen (LOX) as the oxidizer. Read more at: http://phys.org/news/2012-11-spacex-story-reuseable-grasshopper-rocket.html#jCp

The Grasshopper RLV consists of a Falcon 9 Stage 1 tank, a Merlin-1D engine, four steel landing legs, and a steel support structure. Carbon overwrapped pressure vessels (COPVs), which are filled with either nitrogen or helium, are attached to the support structure. The Merlin-1D engine has a maximum thrust of 122,000 pounds. The overall height of the Grasshopper RLV is 106 feet, and the tank height is 85 feet. The propellants used in the Grasshopper RLV include a highly refined kerosene fuel, called RP-1, and liquid oxygen (LOX) as the oxidizer. Read more at: http://phys.org/news/2012-11-spacex-story-reuseable-grasshopper-rocket.html#

Tragedy Remembered: January 28, 1986

On that fateful winter day in 1986, I was a newly minted grad student at UCLA in the then-fledgling area of cognitive science, where I was able to assemble my own interdisciplinary course of study and research. I chose computational psycholinguistics, which meant that my goal was to invent the Universal Translator (as seen on Star Trek) by the time I was 25 and single-handedly revolutionize global and cross-cultural communication.  The reality of technological limits put a damper on these aspirations soon enough. But in the winter of 1986, I felt I was in the right place at the right time to change the world.

In addition, just a couple of weeks prior, I had met a human factors engineer who was working on improving the space shuttle crew compartment and on designing living quarters for the planned space station, which was named “Freedom” at the time, a very ambitious project that was later scaled back into what is now the ISS. She soon hired me as a consultant, once she realized that I have a background (more by accident than by choice) in quantification of human movement across three dimensions. We spent many hours together in front of a TV set and VHS VCR, watching NASA footage of astronauts moving about various shuttle compartments in space, followed by many more hours of devising ways to measure and quantify their movements. Most of the footage was from Challenger missions.

It was during these hours that I lived through one of the most intellectually embarrassing moments of my life. While we were discussing the difficulties that moving about in microgravity added to obtaining consistent measurements, I suddenly had a seemingly brilliant idea: “Hey! Why don’t we suggest to NASA to film astronauts in microgravity during an upcoming mission – have them do some basic movements that can be used as baselines. Put some lead boots on them so they’ll always have their feet on the floor!”  I looked at her expectantly and could tell she was trying not to laugh. :::::dramatic pause::::: …. and…. the light went on in my brain (about 30 seconds too late, thanks a lot, brain). I just wanted to disappear. Thankfully, she laughed and said “Don’t worry – that happens to everybody!”

This collaboration ended with a job offer to work full time in human factors psychology to design living quarters on space station Freedom.

So the question “Grad school as I had planned or a job in the space industry that just happened to fall into my lap?” was very much on my mind as I walked across the UCLA campus to the research methods lab class I was teaching early that morning on January 28, 1986. I knew there was a launch that morning, but like so many others, I had already started taking them for granted after 5 years and didn’t give it much thought. I walked through the student union where everybody appeared to be clustered around two TV sets. Deep in my own thoughts, I ignored them and figured it had something to do with a football game, the only other occasion during which I had seen students glued to the TVs like that.

When I walked into my classroom I could tell instantly something was wrong. I attempted to make a joke about “all the long faces”. “You don’t know?” one of the students asked. “Know what?” “The space shuttle! It exploded! They’re all dead!” (I realize Challenger did not actually explode and there had not been any official announcement on the fate of the crew). The news hit me like a physical punch. I took two steps back against the wall and had to consciously keep from sliding to the floor. I don’t remember much after that. I don’t remember if I taught the class, cancelled it, or anything else about that day. I do remember very vividly that the wait for answers about what had happened was frustrating and excruciating. I never looked at a space shuttle the same way again. And I never once took them or their voyages for granted again.

I did stay in grad school. The job offer was still on the table, but I decided against it. A year later, the human factors program for space station Freedom was cancelled and my friend was transferred to a department that had her working on improving the ergonomics of combat plane cockpits. After all, this was the era of Star Wars. No, not George Lucas' Star Wars. Rather, the giant defense industry boon(doggle) that was Ronald Reagan's Star Wars.

I don’t usually believe in chasing “What ifs” but in this case it’s hard not to speculate.

I keep Challenger’s last mission patch in a special place – as a reminder not of what could have been, but as inspiration for all that which we will yet achieve in space.

Challenger's last mission patch on the left

A heat tile  from Challenger's wreckage at the Santa Maria Museum of Flight in Santa Maria, CA

Read more about the Santa Maria Museum of Flight and the history of the space shuttle at Vandenberg AFB:

 SpaceX, Space Coast West and the Future of Santa Maria