Russians launch station cargo ship; SpaceX up next
Russia launched a Progress space freighter from Kazakhstan Saturday, kicking off a two-day flight to deliver 5,809 pounds of equipment and supplies to the International Space Station. It was the first of two supply runs to the lab complex in just 31 hours, with SpaceX gearing up for a Florida launching overnight Sunday.
In pre-dawn darkness, a workhorse Soyuz U booster carrying the Progress MS-03/64P cargo ship roared to life and climbed away from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan at 5:41 p.m. EDT (3:41 a.m. Sunday local time). A little less than nine minutes later, the Progress was released to fly on its own, kicking off a 34-orbit rendezvous.
At the moment of launch, the space station was flying 252 miles above Chad in western Africa and if all goes well, the upgraded MS-series cargo ship, featuring improved avionics and navigation systems, will reach the station around 8:22 p.m. Monday, docking at the Earth-facing Pirs module.
On board the supply ship: 1,940 pounds of propellant, 110 pounds of oxygen, 926 pounds of water and 2,833 pounds of equipment, crew supplies and spare parts.
Several hours before the Progress took off, at 8:30 a.m. Saturday, SpaceX engineers at the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida test fired the nine Merlin 1D first-stage engines in a Falcon 9 rocket, a short "burn" to verify engine operation before committing the rocket to flight.
The test went well, and SpaceX remains on track to launch the Falcon 9 at 12:45 a.m. Monday, just as Earth's rotation carries launch complex 40 into the plane of the space station's orbit. Forecasters are predicting a 90 percent chance of favorable weather.
The Dragon cargo ship perched atop the Falcon 9's second stage will be carrying 3,946 pounds of crew supplies, science gear, research samples and other hardware in its pressurized cabin. Mounted in an unpressurized trunk section will be a 1,029-pound International Docking Adapter, or IDA. The Dragon should reach the station around 7 a.m. Wednesday.
Monday's launching will be SpaceX's ninth operational station resupply flight, the 27th for the Falcon 9 and the eighth launch since a catastrophic second-stage failure in June 2015 that destroyed a load of station-bound hardware and the first of two planned Boeing-built IDAs.
Two docking adapters eventually are needed at the station to permit commercial crew ferry ships being developed by SpaceX and Boeing to dock at the lab complex along with future U.S. cargo vehicles.
The IDA set for launch Monday -- IDA-2 -- will replace the hardware lost in the 2015 mishap. A third IDA is now being built by Boeing, utilizing spare parts and test articles to shorten production time. IDA-3 is expected to launch in 2018 aboard another SpaceX Dragon.
In the wake of the 2015 launch failure, SpaceX implemented changes that will allow the Dragon's landing parachutes to deploy in the event of a mishap that might leave the capsule -- and its valuable cargo -- intact after a booster failure.
Because forecasters are predicting winds that could blow a descending capsule back toward the launch site after an in-flight accident, Air Force range safety officers have ordered non-essential personnel, including VIPs and journalists, to evacuate the area an hour before launch and to move to alternative viewing sites just in case of a landing that could result in the release of toxic propellants.
