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US commercial spacecraft completes key tests to visit space station
Source: Xinhua |
May 25, 2012, Friday
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Online Edition
Online Edition
CALIFORNIA-BASED private company SpaceX announced yesterday that its Dragon spacecraft completed key on-orbit tests as part of a historic attempt to be the first commercial company to send a spacecraft to the International Space Station.
Early yesterday morning, Dragon's thrusters fired, bringing the vehicle 2.4 kilometers below the station. The vehicle completed two key tests at that distance. Dragon demonstrated its Relative GPS and established a communications link with the station. Astronauts commanded on Dragon's strobe light to confirm the link worked.
If Dragon continues to operate as planned, it will fly to within about 30 feet (nine meters) of the US&100 billion station today and shut down its maneuvering thrusters so the station crew can snare it with a robotic crane and hook it onto a docking port.
So far, the demonstration flight has been near flawless, according to progress reports from US space agency NASA and SpaceX since the capsule blasted off atop the Falcon 9 rocket from Cape Canaveral in Florida yesterday.
Before Dragon's liftoff, flights to the space station have always been a government-only affair.
Until their retirement last summer, US space shuttles carried most of the gear and many of the astronauts to the orbiting outpost. Since then, American astronauts have had to rely on Russian capsules for rides. European, Japanese and Russian supply ships have been delivering cargo.
NASA is looking to the private sector, in this post-shuttle era, to get American astronauts launching again from US soil. It will be at least four to five years before SpaceX or any other private operator is capable of flying astronauts.
Early yesterday morning, Dragon's thrusters fired, bringing the vehicle 2.4 kilometers below the station. The vehicle completed two key tests at that distance. Dragon demonstrated its Relative GPS and established a communications link with the station. Astronauts commanded on Dragon's strobe light to confirm the link worked.
If Dragon continues to operate as planned, it will fly to within about 30 feet (nine meters) of the US&100 billion station today and shut down its maneuvering thrusters so the station crew can snare it with a robotic crane and hook it onto a docking port.
So far, the demonstration flight has been near flawless, according to progress reports from US space agency NASA and SpaceX since the capsule blasted off atop the Falcon 9 rocket from Cape Canaveral in Florida yesterday.
Before Dragon's liftoff, flights to the space station have always been a government-only affair.
Until their retirement last summer, US space shuttles carried most of the gear and many of the astronauts to the orbiting outpost. Since then, American astronauts have had to rely on Russian capsules for rides. European, Japanese and Russian supply ships have been delivering cargo.
NASA is looking to the private sector, in this post-shuttle era, to get American astronauts launching again from US soil. It will be at least four to five years before SpaceX or any other private operator is capable of flying astronauts.
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